UPCOMING EVENTS
On April 24, WITS CEO Tena Latona will be joined by WITS Board Treasurer and Principal at KPMG LLP, Maria Arosteguy, and WITS Mentor and Vice President of Institutional Client Business at BlackRock, Phillip Williams, to discuss employee volunteer programs and corporate social responsibility goals.
WITS Summer Books is an initiative that brings the WITS community together to raise funds to provide books for students' at-home libraries, teachers' classroom libraries, and the WITS program library. Teams of WITS supporters unite to raise money for a Chicago elementary school.
Join a team today and be part of fostering a love of reading for Chicago students!
wits mission, vision, & values
WITS believes that literacy is the foundation on which all other learning develops. Our mission is to empower Chicago elementary students to discover themselves through reading while developing foundational literacy skills. We do this by creating community through literacy-based mentorship, enabling teachers to build diverse classroom libraries, and promoting book ownership at home.
WITS creates opportunities for every student in Chicago to be literate.
- Consistency
- Community
- Empowerment
WITS is the largest and most consistent provider of no-cost literacy-based mentorship to Chicago Public Schools.
WITS programs help students develop a love of reading that guides them through the critical transition of learning-to-read to reading-to-learn.
Reading is one of the most commonly and intensively used skills in all types of jobs across the U.S. economy. Third graders who are proficient in reading are four times more likely to graduate than those without proficient reading skills.
WHY WITS PROGRAMS MATTER
WITS creates community through literacy-based mentorship, enabling teachers to build diverse classroom libraries, and promoting book ownership at home.
WITSK students build book and print awareness including reading left to right and distinguishing between letters and words.
Eighty-four percent of students agreed that participating in WITS made them want to read for fun more often. Reading for fun leads to more reading engagement and better reading comprehension.
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.
