Sometimes, we might take reading for granted. From a WhatsApp from your friend to a Teams message from your boss, we spend a lot of our day reading even if it doesn’t feel like it. It’s much more pervasive than settling down with a brew and the latest bestseller in a comfy chair by the fire, and forms the basis of a hefty percentage of our daily communication.
In addition to this, we’re also living in an era where so much of our communication has been made virtual by the global response to Covid-19 - and this means a much higher reliance on text media. A face-to-face meeting might be replaced by an email these days, and we’re being encouraged to utilise online services as opposed to in-person ones for everything from legal help to a doctor’s appointment to maintain social distancing – reading is everywhere, and it’s difficult for most people to imagine what having low literacy must be like.
It’s a sobering fact that Britain has a relatively large amount of people considered to have low literacy skills. Research by The Literacy Trustreveals that 1 in 6 people in England – that’s 7.1 million people, or 16.4% of the entire English population- have what they describe as ‘very poor’ literacy skills. This means that whilst they can understand straightforward texts on familiar topics accurately and independently, they could struggle when reading information from unfamiliar sources or topics, or information that’s presented in a dense or unusual way.
It has a number of knock-on effects – not only could individuals be dealing with self-esteem and reading anxiety as a result of this skill gap, they might struggle to do other things too. This could be supporting their child’s learning, or even making it into the career that they want if that career has a heavy reliance on reading as a form of communication.
The Write Offs is a TV show that explores these literacy differences adults from all walks of life, and gives low literacy a very human profile. Following the stories of a number of people with low literacy, it explores just what can happen when they get the support and the specialist teaching that they need, and how this can have a huge impact on their life chances, self esteem, and their relationships with the jobs they do.
66-year-old pottery worker Tommy Dawkins from Stoke-on-Trent was one of the breakout stars of The Write Offs, and proved a great screen presence and spokesperson for adults with low literacy. Supported on his reading journey by the expert assistance of Dyslexia CodeBreakers’ Georgina Smith, the series charted his inspirational progress towards a better reading future, and the big positive changes it made in his everyday life. This week, he’s been supporting Go Red For Dyslexia by doing something that might have seemed unthinkable to him a few years ago – reading out a poem he’s written!
“The jobs we’ve lost; the promotions we’ve missed
Because we cannot read and write
Shopping, children’s names, letters and poems-
Things you take for granted, we have a problem with
Because we cannot read and write.”
It’s a heartfelt piece all about the little things that people with strong reading skills might just not realise are a problem for people who struggle to read and write, and he ends on a wonderful rallying cry for support and acceptance so that going forward, people can read and write. You can check it out below (and yes, we might be a little bit biased, but we love his T-shirt)!