2026 is the National Year of Reading, a celebration of literacy's power to transform lives. But for the 7.1 million adults in the UK who struggle with reading, this transformation can seem out of reach, particularly when it matters most - when they're separated from the people they love.
Joe, a Shannon Trust learner, had been taking his young daughter's letters to a friend for years. Having someone else read them aloud was difficult. Having to ask that person to write his replies was worse. “I was embarrassed,” he said, “and I couldn't always express my true feelings.”
Letters create an opportunity for connection. A letter from home carries weight in your hands, proof that someone thought about you long enough to put pen to paper. But it carries so much more significance if you can read it yourself.
Learning to read in prison can have a profound impact for many different reasons. It can provide vital life skills, open doors to more future employment prospects, and improve relationships. Being able to receive your loved one’s news in their own words rather than summarised by someone else offers so much more - privacy, intimacy and the ability to maintain the threads that connect you to life beyond the walls.
Shannon Trust's peer-led reading programme, Turning Pages, recognises that learning to read is deeply personal, sometimes vulnerable. When one person in prison teaches another, there's solidarity in that exchange.
The beauty of letters is their permanence. A phone call evaporates the moment it ends. A letter stays. You can return to it, notice new details, feel a physical representation of someone's care. For people separated from family, this permanence is precious.
Joe's breakthrough came when he could pick out words in his daughter's letters. Working with his mentor, Martin, he gradually learned to read all of them. Then he began to reply, and his daughter saw ‘Daddy's writing’ for the first time.
Billy, another learner, developed his reading skills with a Shannon Trust mentor too. After working with his mentor for weeks, Billy wrote his first letter to his mum - three simple words: ‘I love you.’ His mum's reaction was as if "Billy had won the lottery."
This National Year of Reading is the perfect opportunity to acknowledge that literacy goes beyond words on a page. It means connection and being able to hold someone's thoughts in your hands, whenever you need to.
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