Our journey began in the Jalan Kukoh area in 2013, when we met children from the neighbourhood through a community food distribution effort, and recognised a significant literacy deficit.
Our founders Michelle Yeo and Jonathan Muk were determined to make a difference. With the support of a dedicated volunteer founding team, including Samuel Chan, Amanda Chong, Jessica Choong, Sharmini James, Samantha Kwan, Lim Mingjing, Lim Hui, Teh Joo Lin, Natalie Teo, and Pamela Tham, we established our first literacy programme in 2014.
We started out teaching four children in two HDB rental flats. Over the years, ReadAble has grown and evolved. Many dedicated and able volunteers have joined along the way, enabling us to expand our programmes to cater to children of different ages and needs.
In 2015, we moved ReadAble’s programmes into a centralised location at the CATCH Plus centre. The same year, we introduced the Fitzroy reading curriculum, which has been instrumental in helping our students improve their literacy skills in a systematic and measurable way. We also established our mum’s class, led by Chee Soo Lian, and our early childhood class, which has grown from 3 siblings to over 10 children.
In 2017, we restructured ReadAble’s classes to better meet the needs of our students: introducing ReadAble Explorers (early childhood), ReadAble Rangers (junior and senior), and ReadAble Champs (primary school graduates). We launched CountAble, our numeracy programme, in 2018.
ReadAble became a registered charity in 2020. Our staff members, executive director Bernice Lee and programme manager Jeannette Yeo, oversee ReadAble’s smooth running and the evolution of its programmes according to need.
