National Literacy Trust - Stoke

Literacy is essential. Without literacy, it's hard to live the life you want. From your earliest years, literacy skills help you develop and communicate. But when you have a tough start in life, it's easy to fall behind.

At school, having the literacy skills to read, write, speak and listen are vital for success. If you find these things hard, then you struggle to learn. It affects your confidence and self-esteem.

Children born into communities with the most serious literacy challenges have some of the lowest life expectancies in England.

As an adult, without these same literacy skills, you can't get the jobs you want, and navigating every day life can be difficult – from using the internet, to filling out forms or making sense of instructions on medicines or road signs. If you have children, it's hard to support their learning, and so the cycle continues.

Our understanding of what it means to be literate goes beyond being able to read and write, although these are vital skills. It also includes oracy skills so we can effectively communicate and share our authentic voice and experience. It means honing our ability to listen and understand. In an evolving digital age and as we consider what literacy skills are required to thrive on and offline, we must also start to unpack the importance of topics like media literacy, digital and information literacy, AI and Literacy, and financial literacy.

The National Literacy Trust believe that together, we can break the cycle. They believe that literacy is for everyone so they continue to work in schools and with communities to bring real change through their inspiring and evidence-based programmes, resources and activities.

The Quatrefoil Giving Fund has committed to 3 years of unrestricted funding to support the National Literacy Trust in raising literacy levels across Stoke-on-Trent.