A 91-year-old former teacher is helping children develop their literacy skills from her living room – and said it was “a privilege and a gift”.
Diana Iddles has five students with whom she reads through an online platform designed to help children get ahead in reading after lockdown.
Volunteer work filled a “huge gap” in her life after her husband’s death, she said.
“It made life worth living, I have purpose and it’s so rewarding.”
The Bookmark Reading Charity connects trained volunteers with primary school children who have difficulty reading.
It is using technology introduced during the coronavirus pandemic to address an “urgent need” for its services.
The kit allows Mrs Iddles to conduct sessions from her home in Tettenhall, Wolverhampton.
In an average state school class, eight children drop out of elementary school and cannot read well, the charity said.
Pupils from more disadvantaged communities have been disproportionately affected by the pandemic and cost-of-living crisis, Chief Executive Graihagh Crawshaw added.
About 2,000 volunteers are currently working in around 200 schools across the country, but due to high demand from schools, they are requesting that more people sign up.
Despite her teaching career, Ms Iddles said she had only taught three people to read before – her younger sister, as well as her own daughter and son.
“When I thought about signing up for the charity, I thought, well, I’ve done it three times already, and I was wondering if I could do it again?”
“I couldn’t read because my parents were told not to teach me,” she said.
“And I can still clearly remember the first reading that made me decide to become a teacher. I was five years old,” she added.
She first signed up as a volunteer in 2021 and has since conducted more than 230 reading sessions.
“After my husband died, there was such a black hole,” she said. “I had to try to fill my time with something instead of spending all my time in misery.”
The children receive the sessions over a period of six weeks via an online platform.
“The first child I helped seemed to enjoy the sessions, so by the end of the six weeks I thought I could help another child, and then another child, and then another,” Ms. Iddles explained.
“It makes me feel like I’m doing something really good and worth being still in this world.”
One of her students, Angie, moved to the UK from Central America three years ago as she couldn’t speak English.
Ms Iddles was given special permission to continue working with her after the first six weeks and the couple have now completed more than 40 sessions.
The pupil, who attends Langley Primary School in Oldbury, said Ms Iddles was a “terrific teacher, I really like her”, adding she gave the lessons a “10 out of 10”.
The nine-year-old said they would love to read books about space and the environment together.
“I really enjoy the sessions as much as the children do, in some ways even more,” added Ms. Iddles.
While the charity offers face-to-face classes, the online element now accounts for about 80% of its work, Ms Crawshaw said, adding that schools across the country have a “urgent need” for their services.
Last fall, school partners were only able to meet about 60% of demand, “and I wish next September would feel very different,” she said.
Oldbury School’s deputy director, Cath Waterworth, said it was “phenomenal” that the children in the program were getting an hour’s one-on-one tuition each week.
“It has allowed us to provide what we need, which is for children to bond with the volunteers and have time for them and no one else.”
Full-time contributor Victoria Ash has also signed up to work with the charity in 2021.
The 27-year-old associate investment manager from London said she was “spurred on by Covid” to volunteer.
“I was a bit nervous at first as I didn’t have much experience with children,” she explained.
“I don’t think twice about it now. Sometimes I’d just come back from a job interview and dive right into the lesson thing. I don’t think about it anymore, it’s just becoming the norm.”
She said volunteering is “something different than just working in a corporate environment.”
“It’s rewarding to know that a child will benefit from spending an hour a week even though they might not get reading help at school because they don’t have the resources to do so.”
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