Ed Melia, NIACE Press Officer:
The Quick Reads were launched on World Book Day in 2006. Since then they
have had a major influence on the lives of thousands of adults. As part of a
NIACE series looking at the impact of the Quick Reads I spoke to people at the
heart of this initiative. I started with Kathy Gayle, the Project Director of
the Quick Reads.
Kathy Gayle:
The idea first came from a publisher who was looking at the shrinking market
for books and she came across a figure that a third of the British population
never picks up a book, and the frightening reality that 12 million people in the
UK struggle with reading. She then got a group of publishers together to look at
these facts and to think about whether there was something that publishers could
do to offer something to people who were struggling with reading and do
something at the same time to help expand the market for books.
Ed Melia:
Quick Reads was the answer: a series of books by bestselling writers that
would appeal to emergent readers and those who have lost the reading habit. The
idea linked in with the work of a number of bodies: BBC RAW Campaign; Union
Learn; The National Literacy Trust; The National Reading Campaign; The Vital
Link and The Reading Agency as well as NIACE were all soon on board, as were the
DfES. Here is Bill Rammell, the Minister of State for Lifelong Learning and
Further and Higher Education:
Bill Rammell MP:
People find themselves cut off within their own communities, within society
at large. Simple things like being able to write a letter to be able communicate
with your bank, to apply for a job and although we have made progress we still
have got too many people in this country who are either illiterate or aren’t
functionally literate. I think quick reads is an excellent idea. It is about
making reading accessible in a quick, easy to get hold of manner and it is
really making a difference to many, many people. These kinds of initiatives can
really help make progress and change.
Ed Melia:
The writers were approached and first sets of Quick Reads were published,
and they were soon in the hands of people like Mo Mowforth, a Skill for Life
Tutor in Hull.
Mo Mowforth:
When the Quick Reads came out we saw them as a really, really opportunity
because they were materials that we had been looking for a long, long time. It
is very difficult sometimes to find books that are written at the right level
for the emergent reader that we were working for. The Quick Reads have been an
enormous part in developing peoples’ confidence and it is the fact that the
books are written by authors whose names they recognise. They can read a Quick
Read, say by Minnette Walters, enjoy it and say; ‘Well has she written anything
else?’ Can I have a look at that?’ and it continues that moving on process.
Ed Melia:
Tina and Sue were in Mo’s literacy group but had not read a book in years.
Tina:
Couldn’t read, couldn’t put words together. I found it really hard reading a
book. The most books I could read was, do you remember the Peter and Jane books?
things like that. Give me a hard book and I just wouldn’t read it. I would just
look at it and put it down.
Sue:
I felt inadequate. I didn’t actually sit down and read books. It was just
like newspapers and then I read John Birds book and I really enjoyed that one.
Tina:
These are just thin books. They are easy to read.
Ed Melia:
Which one of the Quick reads did you read first?
Tina:
Tom Holt. That is a brilliant book. That really put me into reading books. I
read that one first and I thought it was really good and so I thought I would
have a go at the others and I did.
Ed Melia:
These Quick Reads, these small books transformed peoples’ lives in a big
way. Something that is only too clear to Bill Rammell MP and first Kathy Gayle.
Kathy Gayle.:
I think that has been the real achievement of Quick Reads; that so many
people, who haven’t been able to read before, have read and absolutely loved the
books and gone out and bought more, and it has given them an immense amount of
self confidence and self esteem and has encouraged them to learn more and do
more and feel that there are things that aren’t out of their grasp.
Bill Rammell MP :
If you do take that step, if you do get involved, if you do begin to take up
the opportunities that are available to help you to read, it really can
fundamentally change your life. Don’t listen to me. Don’t believe me. Listen to
the people who have actually undertaken that process, who have had real literacy
problems and they will tell you about the way their lives have been phenomenally
changed for the better.
Sue:
I haven’t looked back really. I take my children to the library. Me eldest
daughter, she actually says to me ‘Mam, does that sound alright, is there any
other way that I can put it? and now I can actually say ‘Yeah, well, that sounds
alright but you could put it this way.
Ed Melia:
And how does that make you feel?
Sue:
On top of the world. For her saying that to me. I am not just a mum and
that’s it. She actually wants to know that everything fine and know that she is
doing a good job. For her wanting my opinion, it’s not just like a
mother-daughter relationship, it’s friends and that’s what I wanted.
Tina:
I am pretty proud of myself. Reading a book and understanding it and that
and some of the big words in it. Except I usually have the dictionary next to me
when I am reading my book but I didn’t really need one with that. I couldn’t put
it down. I just started reading it, just carried on reading and reading until I
had finished it. Then I was telling everybody about it. I couldn’t wait to get
back on Monday to tell Mo about it and I had wrote about it as well, that I did,
that really enjoyed it.
Sue:
I am more outgoing now. I was real quiet. Wouldn’t say boo to a goose. It
has put my self-esteem higher. About a year and a half ago it was roughly two or
three and now it is about 7 or 8 and I am going to get it up there. I am going
to get it up to 10.
Tina:
I didn’t have the confidence a year ago but now I have got the confidence.
Everybody is always putting me down. All my family, ‘Oh, your thick’ and that,
but now I know I am not thick. I have got it all up there and it is all coming
out now. And they say life begins at 40 and it did for me.
Mo Mowforth:
I sat with a learner earlier today and she was going through a pile of the
quick reads that I had and she said; ‘oh!’ ’I haven’t read that one’. ‘I haven’t
read that one’. ‘Oh!’ ‘ I want that one.’ and she ended up with a pile eight
books sat in front of her, all of which she wants read. That says it all really,
doesn’t it? - that enthusiasm and excitement and desire to read.