WITS Mid-Day Mentoring
Mid-Day Mentoring (MDM) is a school-day literacy and mentoring program that pairs second through third-grade elementary school students and corporate mentors for one-on-one, 45-minute reading sessions. Mentors are transported from their workplaces to neighborhood schools. MDM promotes foundational literacy skills and a love of reading by reading aloud, sharing stories, and talking about books.
Why Mid-Day Mentoring is Important
According to data from The Illinois Assessment of Readiness (IAR), based on testing from Spring 2024, only 31% of elementary school students in Chicago Public Schools are proficient in reading.
By the end of the school year, 71% of WITS students had met or exceeded the national standard for reading level proficiency in their grade level, compared to 39% at the beginning of the school year.
100% of our partner teachers are satisfied with student participation in WITS. Teachers value that our programs promote a love of reading and support social-emotional development in students.
According to data from The Illinois Assessment of Readiness (IAR), based on testing from Spring 2024, only 31% of elementary school students in Chicago Public Schools are proficient in reading.
By the end of the school year, 71% of WITS students had met or exceeded the national standard for reading level proficiency in their grade level, compared to 39% at the beginning of the school year.
Seventy-five percent of WITS Kindergarten teachers reported that their students had developed specialized reading interests throughout the year, an increase of more than 30% from the beginning of the year.
Eighty-four percent of WITS students reported that they liked reading books for fun at the end of the school year, up from 68% at the beginning of the school year.
At the end of the school year, an average of 90% of WITS students reported feeling good or very good about spending time with their mentors.
program facilitators
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