The National Literacy Trust recently published a report showing how important reading is and the impact it has on career development and how much people can earn. Therefore choosing to support reading by volunteering can have a deep and long lasting impact on a persons life.

Volunteering to support readers is not just about helping in the classroom or exclusively about working with children as they acquire skills early in life. Volunteers support readers in the workplace, in hospitals and at home, helping people from every type background and at every stage of life.  

To coincide with Make a Difference Day, the National Year of Reading has launched Help with Reading, a unique guide to inspire and help organisations to set up their own volunteer reading schemes.

The downloadable guide includes case studies from eleven organisations that are pioneering a number of innovative projects supporting readers across the country. These include Reading Matters, CSV, KPMG and Peterborough City Council. Help with Reading also includes practical advice on becoming a volunteer and on recruiting volunteers, as well as articles on the benefits of volunteering.

"Reading can change lives – and so can volunteering", says Honor Wilson-Fletcher, project director for the National Year of Reading. "Help with Reading highlights the range of really effective volunteering projects there are to support young, old, socially excluded and visually impaired readers."

Projects showcased in Help with Reading include:

• Doorstep Library,an innovative project targeting socially excluded families.
• Digitall Mentoring, a project involving young people helping older people become digitally literate.
• National Talking Newspapers and Magazines, the organisation responsible for giving 7,000 visually impaired people the same access to newspapers and magazines enjoyed by sighted people.

Find out more about how literacy changes lives by visting Literacy Changes Lives.

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