Introduction

This page comprises the text of a leaflet originally drafted to provide information for educational, social, medical and allied services, which has been reformatted for the web.

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 The Club Approach

Gladys Zonena Glascoe pioneered the Club approach to writing and reading for adults with special difficulties in 1970. In 1974 Gladys Zonena Glascoe and Philip Glascoe together with an experienced group of volunteers set up the first Amity Reading Club (at that time they were known as Rathbone Reading Clubs) and the organisation has been operating continuously ever since.

Our policy is to share the benefits of our approach with other workers in this and allied fields as well as carry out to its optimum our first duty of support to the Supervising Tutors and their volunteers, on whom our students depend for their literacy progress and general welfare in the Clubs.

Although the Clubs are no longer new, the concept of the Club approach is still fresh to many workers in the field of basic education. While there is no substitute for direct experience, it would not be fair to say that the Club experience is incommunicable, since its elements – individual tuition, stress on integration of these social relationships into larger groups and a policy of social support – are not of themselves new. What is unique is the combination of these elements and their systematic application. So far as we are aware, Amity Reading Clubs is alone in the deliberate and systematic development of the Club approach.

To an outsider paying a visit, a typical Club is seen as a collection of couples, indistinguishable at first glance as teacher and taught, ensconced in comfortable premises, such as a library, and not noticeably organised or structured, least of all by the quiet individual who emerges from the group to greet you and who turns out to be the Supervising Tutor.

Invariably, first impressions conveyed to us emphasise both the warmth and concentration of the Club atmosphere and the tension produced by the apparent lack of structure, and hence the newcomer’s uncertainty about their role. In the light of this fact, let us examine the Clubs through the eyes first, of a student, next of a volunteer, then of a Supervising Tutor and lastly of the Founding Organisers.

The Students’ Perspective

Students are very varied but the majority are young men between 25 and 35, many of whom are in unskilled work or unemployed. Whatever their specific literacy disabilities, - ranging from brain damage through congenital perceptual disorders to simple social handicaps such as a lack of confidence – what they all share is a prolonged history of reading failure, often intensified by repeated and unsuccessful attempts to overcome their difficulties. The majority have received some form of "special education" and even in this favoured context, they have failed. Nor have their efforts to accept other forms of literacy tuition been successful. In addition to their primary literacy disability, whatever it may be, they now suffer under massive discouragement and frequently have other and associated problems in relating to family, workmates and friends.

The sole criterion for referral to the Clubs is that the student should be unable (and this must ofcourse subsume "unwilling") to profit by other forms of literacy tuition. In other words, what is essential to them is the continuous attention, immediate feedback and generalised support offered by the Clubs.

Referral by another literacy scheme, library, employer, doctor or social worker is the usual form of admission, but self-referral is not unknown. The sponsor is asked to accompany the student on their first visit to lessen the anxiety attendant on initiating yet another attempt at what, hitherto, has proved an impossible task. If this form of introduction is impossible, then we try and make a home visit. This is a step, which we may in any event take or repeat if it is found to be helpful or informative.

When the student enters the Club, often with shoulders hunched and head bowed, their first sight of students and volunteers tells them, as nothing else can, that they, themselves, bear no visible stigma; we often see the effect of this knowledge in an immediate relaxation – the shoulders drop and the head lifts. The student meets the  Supervising Tutor and their induction begins in the establishment if their relationship with that individual whose responsibility it is to assess, without damaging the student's confidence, the extent if their difficulties, and begin to plan the ways of solving them. Crucial in this process is the student’s perception of his or her own needs. These may be to pass a driving test, to read the will their father is drafting, or read to their school-age children, who are now demanding stories.

Whatever their initial aim, and no matter how clearly we can foresee the widening of horizons which almost inevitably takes place, that aim is to be respected. Furthermore, it is sometimes necessary to respect the prejudices of the student in the choice of methods used. A student who has been educated on alphabetic lines that we would consider archaic, may do better if allowed to follow their own urge to repeat the process and get it right this time, rather than impose our own views.

In time, the simple need to vary a two-hour stint of work as well as the influence of other activities going on around, will enable us, or rather the student's volunteer, to win them around to other ways of learning. Chief amongst these, we set store by the "language experience approach", the value of handwriting in reinforcing reading and the validity of personal expression, whether functional or imaginative. This takes many forms; and includes letters or documents, individual books, collaborative productions such as news-sheets, or exploiting the many facets of our computers and their wide range of literacy software.

Initially however, our aim is to get to know the student and foster their motivation in this new attempt at literacy. If the student does not find welcome and acceptance in the Club, they will not return and may well abandon the attempt forever. We are careful therefore, not to match student and volunteer without several weeks acquaintance with each other and a deliberate appraisal, including the opinion of each party, to the matching. Once matched, student and volunteer, together with the Supervising Tutor decide on the programme of work and carry out the periodic review which is our simple and direct form of evaluation. At first, the absolute beginner may be unable to write down any of their aims for themselves. A time passes, their progressed is demonstrated not only by the work that accumulates in their folder, but also by their growing command of the means of expression and how, far they consider they are achieving them.

The student relies on the primary relationship with their volunteer, and with the  Supervising Tutor, but from the beginning these are integrated into the life of the whole Club, notably during the Coffee Break. Whatever conditions may pertain at home or at work, here they find friendliness, acceptance and good humour, in a state of psychological freedom within psychological safety. The student begins to acquire a sense of community, which, through social activities outside Club time and in conjunction with other Clubs, will in the long run lead them to enter more fully into the life of the community at large. Literacy without fellowship is meaningless and we are convinced that for our students, fellowship is the key to literacy.

The Volunteers Perspective

Our volunteers are as varied as our students, but the majority are young women of the same age group as the bulk of our students, and who are imbued with the desire to share what seems to them to be the inestimable advantages of literacy. Volunteers learn as much if not more than our students and not simply the techniques of teaching reading; they also learn the reasons why it is of such importance socially. Many come to us through the Libraries’ publicity system or Volunteer Agencies; and not a few have been with us for several years.

Initially, we ask nothing but a single visit, during which the  Supervising Tutor will explain the aims and the mode of operation of the Clubs. If the volunteer is interested we then ask for a trial commitment of some 4-6 weeks, during which they will make apparatus, and coffee, and will work for brief spells with as many different students as possible, often whilst their volunteer is having a chat with the  Supervising Tutor.

At the end of the trial period, which often passes unnoticed because matching has occurred in an easy and natural fashion, the volunteer knows that we look for an extended commitment of a year. It is from the seasoned, professionally qualified and apt volunteers that we recruit our Supervising Tutors, secure in the knowledge that they know from personal experience the nature of the support they will be called on to give.

The Supervising Tutor Perspective

If volunteers are our life-blood, then the Supervising Tutor is the heart of his or her Club. The  Supervising Tutor must know the students, must know the volunteers, must manage where management is necessary the delicate balance of the one-to-one relationships and of the larger network of one-to-one relationships that constitute the whole Club. Beyond this, they must also maintain contact with the central organisation, to which is referred any problem (and these are not infrequent) which cannot be dealt with inside the Club. They sustain direct responsibility for ongoing tutorial training of volunteers, which is offered from a repertoire as extensive as we can make it, of the best available material, techniques and equipment.

For week to week contact with libraries, visitors, referral agencies and others, we rely on the tact of our  Supervising Tutors and their loyalty to Club principles. It is impossible to overemphasise the importance if this key role, and hence of the recruitment and selection of  Supervising Tutors and of the quality if the support we provide for them.

The Founding Organiser’s Perspective

The task if the Founding Organisers who, together with the Secretary, constitute the day-to-day management, is to support the Clubs. This involves knowing every individual as far as this is humanly possible, but above all knowing the Supervising Tutors and ensuring that each has whatever they need to sustain what cannot otherwise be described than, a very wide brief. We ensure that the premises are continuously available, and that wherever possible links with referral agencies and outside organisations are in place and monitored. In addition to library support in equipment and materials we constitute an immediate, speedy source of whatever is urgently needed for individual students.

This extends beyond books, writing materials and equipment to liaison with other agencies in the event of problems arising which are of critical importance to the well-being of the students, that is implementation of our policy of social support. Broadly speaking, this falls into three areas; home, work; or personal relationships, and may range from the need for company in getting measured for a suit, through attendance at a hospital case-conference, to long-term support of a student through the break-up of a marriage. Within the Clubs we operate a policy of befriending by the volunteer but it is for the Supervising Tutor to refer to the central organisation any matters which require more specialised help necessitating referral to the Social Services or other agencies. Liaison work is therefore a large part if the Founding Organiser's duties, including liaison with other literacy organisations, for cross-referral and other purposes.

One of these is the pressure for continuing and increased resources to be allocated to the whole field of adult literacy and basic skills education, with emphasis on the contribution of the voluntary sector and its acceptance by the statutory bodies.

The governing body of Amity Reading Clubs, a Registered Charity, is the Management Committee, comprising all Supervising Tutors, the Secretary, student representatives from each Club, together with a small number of co-opted members with special qualifications and the Founding Organisers. This body is responsible for the initiation and implementation of policy, whether of expansion, consolidation, funding or publicity and the spread of information.

Amity Reading Clubs’ Role

The role of Amity Reading Clubs as a voluntary literacy scheme for adults with special difficulties is not to attempt to meet all of the need we know to exist but rather to maintain and refine the ample pattern we have established which demonstrates abundantly that a scheme so personal is open to replication, with the object of making available to our colleagues the information necessary to that process of replication, if they are inclined to adopt the Club approach. To this end we propose to commission and publish printed and other material designed to communicate as widely as possible our experience in detail and the principles we have abstracted hitherto. In this regard, we are also placing as much material as possible on this web site www.amity.org.uk so that it is on open access to students, volunteers, sister literacy schemes, referral agencies and other interested organisations.

Visits

We welcome visits and other forms of experience for those engaged in or entering the caring professions. If you wish to visit one or more of our Clubs, please contact Gladys Glascoe, our Founding Organiser, by any of the means set out below:-

Telephone

0044 (0)1227 711 012

FAX

0044 (0)1227 711 012 (Call first)

Postal address

61 Cedar Road
Sturry
Canterbury
Kent
CT2 OJG
United Kingdom

Electronic mail

General Information: philipglascoe@amity.org.uk