“It was lovely to hear him say “you’ve made me want to read books I never thought I would before.”

For #StudentVolunteeringWeek we’ve spoken to one of our amazing student volunteers, Amy to get her experience of helping children learn to read.

Amy is an English Literature student at University of East Anglia. Driven by her passion for reading, she has already helped four children through the Bookmark programme.

In the first few sessions, one of Amy’s reader disliked books and it was tricky to engage him with anything other than drawing. But the growth she saw in this reader over the course of their sessions made it her favourite Bookmark volunteering experience to date.

“I started a programme with a child who told me they hated reading only to hear three weeks later that they had started reading at home and reading had changed their life.”

“I remember he said to me at the end of one of our sessions that he had books at home, but he never wanted to read them because he used to think books were boring. But now, he realized that reading could be fun. During our sessions, he started to tell me all about the books he was going to read over the summer holidays.”

“It was lovely to hear him say “you’ve made me want to read books I never thought I would before.”

One of Amy’s favourite aspects of reading with a child on the Bookmark programme is finding out what her readers’ interests are so she can find them stories that they’ll love. She discovered that her reluctant reader was drawn to books about the sea - that’s when their sessions transformed. Gradually, she learnt that this interest was linked to the reader’s background.

“The deep sea became his thing. It was interesting because I later found out that this was because he used to live in Spain and had grown up near Tenerife, around the sea. He naturally gravitated towards these books, and he explained to me why they were gripping to him.”

Amy felt connected to Bookmark’s mission because of her own experience with reading.

“I’m an English Literature student now but I really struggled with reading when I was younger. I remember how frustrating it was feeling like I couldn’t fit in, and that I didn’t know what I was doing. Going from that base level of not being able to read, to now studying books at university, I’ve seen how far reading support can get you, and I’ve found that volunteering with Bookmark is a great way to give back.”

Amy has found volunteering to be a constructive experience personally as well. She’s been able to boost her skills with sessions that fit around her university commitments.

“It’s definitely improved my communications skills, by thinking about how best to describe something so that the reader will understand, and it’s helped with my confidence as well. You get so much out of being a Bookmark volunteer, it’s a lot of fun.”

From volunteering with Bookmark, Amy has a clearer idea of the career she’d like to pursue.

“I’d like to go into peer mentorship or work with children with special needs. Volunteering with Bookmark has had a significant impact on my career plans because I was dead-set that I wanted to work with teenagers but now I’ve realised how much I love working with younger children!”

Volunteering with Bookmark has been a rewarding and meaningful experience for Amy, linking to her past struggles with reading, and helping her envisage her future career.

“It’s been a highlight of my year! I initially thought I’d just volunteer whilst online with university, but it’s definitely something I wouldn’t want to give up now.”