With Teach a friend to read better
end illiteracy in your prisons and community!
Libby and Nick with Molly Barker
in Stanmer Park, Sussex
Libby Coleman BA Med Ed -
is the co-creator of Teach a friend to read better with her husband Nick and a team of special needs teachers.
She was a Basic English teacher in a young offender institution and a prison, a History/Drama teacher, a secondary school headteacher; and a uni lecturer in special needs and school management.
Aged six, when in care homes in Germany, she taught her older, very smart sister who is dyslexic to read, using phonics. Her childhood stammer may have given her the idea for pronouncing phonics correctly! Every cloud etc...
Combating illiteracy through paired reading-teaching has been her life-long passion ever since.
Nick Ainley (30.1.1947 - 30.08.2022) was an IBM systems analyst, the CEO of Just Boats on the canals, a chair for Mencap Northants, the CEO of care homes for adults with learning and physical disabilities,
and the co-creator of the guide.
By breaking tasks into their smallest components he taught a care home client who was paralysed down one side to tie his shoelaces with one hand! Small steps is a key feature of the reading programme.
Promoting women's education with reading as the essential first step was Nick's abiding passion.
Listen to Libby Coleman story on how Teach a friend to read was born on her interview on The Chatterday Show
Russ Haynes - Executive Director for Teach a friend to read better
Russ first met Libby when they were both delegates at the Coates Review Into Prison Education. They hit it off through their mutual passion for helping prison inmates and leavers to believe in themselves.
Russ sits on the National Criminal Justice Arts Alliance committee.
He also volunteers for Good Vibrations and was a committee member for The Prince’s Trust, South East London.
Russ
Wayne
Wayne Curtis - Volunteer in and out of prisons and YOI's since the age of 16, Wayne is a recent prison leaver, who has turned his life around in the most remarkable way. He inspires us all with his determination.
He too is dyslexic and learned to read inside, and then went on to teach a man with learning difficulties to read. Wayne's second new reader joined Narcotics Anonymous as soon as he had completed the reading adventure with Wayne and was finally able to read the Twelve Steps.
Wayne's passion to end illiteracy in prisons and his knowledge of the system is invaluable in helping us to ensure that no-one will leave prison unable to read, and that prisoners will lead the way in helping to end illiteracy with our Teach a friend to read better.
He is helping to end illiteracy in Gosport, as an example of how communties can spreading the gift of reading and writing with
Teach a friend to read better.
Marcus Tate - Volunteer is a photography graduate who works in the industry.
With Libby, Nick and the campaign champions and friends he aims to change attitudes towards dyslexia: reminding people that geniuses like Einstein, Picasso, Beethoven and Hans Christian Anderson were dyslexic, and above all showing the world that people of any age with dyslexia can learn to read and then gain the confidence to grow and shine. Many go on to teach others to read.
Marcus with fellow word wobbler
Hans Christian Anderson
in Central Park New York
We thank all our champions and friends,
who have generously fund-raised and donated
so that our guide could be given out for free
in libraries, prisons, traveller camps, schools,
youth organisations, food banks, hostels...
We thank all our champions and friends
who have prayed for our success.
