Volunteer Opportunities
WITS literacy mentors are the largest volunteer corps servicing Chicago Public Schools (CPS) elementary students. WITS works with volunteers to build critical literacy skills and meaningful relationships with CPS elementary students. WITS mentors connect with students over stories and activities, empowering them to ask questions, raise their hand in class, and discover new interests.
If you would like to be added to our prospective volunteer list, please apply here. We will reach out to you when we are ready to engage new volunteers.
Volunteer Interest Form
If you volunteer with WITS through a program with your company, please reach out to your WITS program staff member for more information.
Contact Us
What Our Volunteers Say
"The best thing about my WITS experience is that it clearly made a difference with my student partner. Over the course of the program she became much more willing to read, read for longer periods of time and became an overall stronger reader. Genesis has a lot of energy and a dramatic flair so it could be challenging to keep her focused at times, but those aspects of her personality also kept it fun for me and I think we developed a bond over time. I already miss her."
WITS Mid-Day Mentor
"Watching my student's reading progress throughout the year was incredibly rewarding. I noticed that he had a strong grasp of bigger words yet struggled with some of the smaller ones. Despite this, I saw his confidence grow as he made the effort to sound out words, even when he wasn't entirely sure of them."
WITS Kindergarten Mentor
Our Outcomes
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.
