The Inflexion Foundation is delighted to announce it has made a donation of £20,000 to literacy charity Bookmark, an organisation that gives children the reading skills and confidence needed to have a fair chance in life.

In the UK there are 7.1 million adults who struggle to read well. Not only do they suffer from limited job prospects, poor health and low self-esteem, but they won’t be able to support their own children with reading. According to the OECD, reading for pleasure is the most important indicator of a child’s future success, even more important than their family’s socioeconomic status.

Bookmark helps address this through a flexible, volunteer-led programme, which supported over 1,400 children with their reading by this school year by delivering over 16,000 reading sessions with them. Praise from academic institutions has proven the importance of this guided tuition:  83% of teachers said they had noticed improvements in children’s reading confidence and enjoyment of reading, and 94% said it had helped their school deal with the challenges of COVID-19.