SEN Awareness Week at www.bettertuition.co.uk

What would it like to be a Muggle in the magical world of books, texting, online adventures in social media and interactive television?  How isolated would you feel if you thought everyone else could read and you couldn’t?  Over five million adults in the UK (that’s around 6% of the population) are functionally illiterate – in other words, their literacy levels are below those expected of an 11-year-old.  A smaller number – fewer than 1% of the population – are completely illiterate.

Part of the problem is that people who struggle with literacy often assume that no one else does.  In many cases, they go through school in a state of huge stress as the curriculum passes them by in a haze of text they cannot access.  They associate learning with feeling stupid and scared so they leave education as soon as they are able.  They develop all sorts of strategies to hide their difficulties with reading and writing, so the problem becomes a hidden, private struggle.

One tutor of our acquaintance, who has taught an adult learner with severe illiteracy, says the following:

 Jane came off the street one day to ask whether I could help her improve her literacy skills.  I explained that I am only trained to teach children and asked whether she had looked into college courses.  She said there weren’t any close enough to home and at a time suitable for her – in spite of her difficulties, Jane has a job and hobbies.  I told her I would try and find an adult tutor for her but I drew a blank.

A couple of weeks later I saw Jane on the bus and started chatting to her.  I realised how unhappy she was and that it had taken a lot of courage for her to come and ask me, a stranger, for help.  I told her I would try to help.

I will always remember Jane’s first lesson with me because she was quite terrified.  Every time she made a slight error she would very quickly say, “I’m stupid, aren’t I?” – like a defence mechanism, but also a way of keeping her expectations low.  I also noticed that she would panic and take a wild guess at words she didn’t recognise, as if she was worried about keeping me waiting. It took quite a while before I could get her in the habit of sounding out words.

Jane was in her late thirties at the time and as we chatted it turned out that she had been sent to special school almost as soon as she started at school.  She wasn’t dyslexic and furthermore, over the weeks it became apparent she was capable of learning to read, though it was a struggle.

As soon as Jane was able to recognise letters, I introduced her to using a laptop computer.  Being able to navigate a keyboard and use a mouse are as essential, in these days, as being able to use a pen or pencil.  When Jane realised that she could do this, her face lit up – it was something she had thought she would never be able to do.

After a few weeks I started searching for a book that Jane could use.  She was now at the level of, say, a six-year-old, and I wanted her to have the experience of reading a book for pleasure.  A six-year-old’s book wouldn’t do that.  There was nothing, or nothing that I could find, so I wrote a book for her, a chapter per week.  It wasn’t the best book – Jane’s literacy skills limited the scope of the story, but she seemed to really love that she was finally doing something ‘normal’.  As we got to know each other better, it was fine for me to use some words I had to read for Jane, but I tried to avoid this as I wanted her to experience the joy of solitary, independent reading.

I still tutor Jane – she never did find a college course that suited her – and she still hasn’t reached functional literacy (the levels expected of an 11-year-old) but her journey is following an upward, happy curve.

If you need help for an adult with literacy issues, it can be very difficult to find an appropriate course.  A good starting point is the GOV.UK helpline (0800 66 0800) or the website of the National Literacy Trust.