Volunteer Interest Form

Please complete this form to share your interest in volunteering with WITS.
  • If you are volunteering with WITS via your company, please use your company email address.
    WITS welcomes volunteers whose first language is not English.
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Our Outcomes

According to data from The Illinois Assessment of Readiness (IAR), based on testing from 2025, only 41% of students in Chicago Public Schools are proficient in reading.

62%
By year’s end, 62% of WITS students read at or above grade-level, nearly double the rate of 37% for all students at WITS schools.
80%
80% of WITS-K teachers reported their students had developed specialized reading interests throughout the year, an increase of more than 44% from the beginning of the 2024-25 school year.​
91%
91% of WITS students reported having positive attitudes towards reading at the end of the 2024-25 school year, up from 73% at the beginning of the year.
94%
At the end of the 2024-25 school year, an across-program average of 94% of WITS students reported feeling good or very good about spending time with their mentors.​
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Why WITS Programs Matter

WITS creates community through literacy-based mentorship, enabling teachers to build diverse classroom libraries, and promoting book ownership at home.

How well a student engages in back-and-forth communication is a strong predictor of whether a kindergarten student will meet first grade literacy targets.

With the help of their mentors, WITS Kindergarten students practice building book and print awareness, including reading left to right and distinguishing between letters and words.

According to data from The Illinois Assessment of Readiness (IAR), based on testing from 2025, only 41% of students in Chicago Public Schools are proficient in reading.

62%

By year’s end, 62% of WITS students read at or above grade-level, nearly double the rate of 37% for all students at WITS schools.

New research emphasizes the need for resources and programs that support students’ emotional well-being, which plays a critical role in their academic success.

100%

One hundred percent 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.

Educators agree that schools play an important role in expanding access to books at home, but many teachers have fewer than one hundred and fifty books in their classroom libraries to serve all their students throughout the year—with 31% of teachers having fewer than fifty books.

According to the Association of Supervision and Curriculum Development (ASCD), students who have robust classroom libraries are more likely to be frequent readers.

Surrounding students with books in the classroom helps them develop a sense of themselves as readers. Classroom libraries allow students to value their decision-making ability, giving them confidence and a feeling of ownership.

Learn More About WITS Programs