Reading for life "Prior to them going on the program the children were getting bored and restless. I've noticed a change of attitude about reading - wanting to read to the class and when it's silent reading time they're actually doing reading as opposed to mucking around and looking at the pictures." Teacher participating in the program Reading for Life is a volunteer reading program to help primary school children who struggle with reading.The program works

by marrying a school with volunteers (reading buddies) from the community to help children weekly for 10 to 15 weeks to improve their reading and lift their self-esteem and confidence.Reading for Life is available in Australia and New Zealand and we are looking to expand the program nationwide.

Each Reading for Life program helps ten to twelve children with a donation of between $4,949 (Masters of Psychology students) and $6,578 (volunteers from a company or organisation or the local community). A parent DVD program costs $2,320.

Reading for Life aims to help children who struggle significantly with reading. These children would benefit significantly from one-on-one help but do not receive additional support in the classroom. It not only aims to improve children's reading but also their self-esteem and motivation. Through the training of volunteers to provide this support, it aims to achieve positive results for volunteers as well as children and their school.

Ongoing evaluation of Reading for Life demonstrates that children participating have increased their reading accuracy by eight months, reading comprehension by nine months and reading fluency by six months over 15 weeks. Their self-esteem has noticeably improved. Parents, children and the schools have expressed enormous gratitude and the volunteers have expressed pride in their ability to make a difference in a child's life.

Australian data suggests that up to 20% of students have specific learning disabilities or general learning difficulties. This is five children in a regular classroom. Teachers often find it challenging to provide children with individual attention and literacy support and, as a general rule, children with learning difficulties, unlike their peers with more recognisable disabilities, do not have access to additional funding or support.

These children have to work harder to succeed, receive more negative feedback regarding their work, and more often experience feelings of frustration, anger, depression, anxiety, worthlessness and low academic self-esteem. Children who have difficulty learning are often overlooked and labelled 'lazy' or 'underachievers'. Evidence suggests that a child's perception of their academic ability can facilitate their school performance, career orientation and expectations of future success. Learning difficulties not only result in a reduced ability to learn, but have far-reaching social implications including problematic behaviour, poor social relations and often delinquency.

In order to enhance these children's self-esteem, measures need to be taken to increase their likelihood of academic achievement. In many cases, one-on-one support is the most effective way to achieve this.

Reading for Life relies on funding and volunteers to run the program. You can either:

As part of the development of Reading for Life, Learning Links has adapted the program to the internet to help children falling behind in reading at school and living in areas geographically removed from potential volunteer sources.

Reading for Life Online hopes to bridge the gap of social isolation and insufficient services experienced by students with learning difficulties and disabilities by utilising technology in a creative and innovative manner.

The program is being trialled with children from a range of different locations. They will receive individual literacy assessments that will provide their families with valuable and unique information about their educational needs.

Children are matched individually with a buddy who works with them once a week online taking them through games and activities that enhance their literacy skills and self-confidence.

During the trial, the program has been evaluated in both quantitative and qualitative terms and from this we have identified some improvements that are needed to this program, see below.

This project is a wonderful example of how technology can empower communities to enhance the lives of a group of people significantly disadvantaged within our community.