Valerie’s Story

Bonding with Dylan over books

Valerie Kennett is one of our online volunteers. She’s been reading with eight-year-old Dylan and has seen him develop from a ‘frightened’ and ‘shy’ boy to a ‘proud, confident and happy’ reader.

She said: “Our first session together lasted one-and-a-half minutes. I told him I was here to help him with his reading, and he took his headphones off and disappeared. I could hear him in the background crying and saying to the teacher, ‘I can’t do it, I don’t want to do it; I don’t know her’.”

The teacher joined Valerie and Dylan for their next session. She explained that Dylan didn’t like the camera, so Valerie switched it off.

She said: “He needed some time to get to know me. The fact that he saw me twice a week helped because I was no longer a stranger." After a few sessions with Dylan, Valerie turned on her camera to say goodbye – but Dylan put his collar up and hid. For the sixth session, however, ‘he turned up all smiling and happy to have the camera on’.

Valerie said: “Once he relaxed, he got more confident with his reading and he started to appreciate the joy of reading more. I would give him a lot of praise, and when he remembered things from previous sessions, it really motivated him.”

By the end of the programme, Dylan had ‘grown in independence’. Valerie added: “At the start of the programme, I never thought he would be able to share his opinions with me on the books, but he became so much more confident.”