2007-2008 Results

Early Childhood program started three years ago with one pilot program.
Currently, we have four on-going programs with another in the volunteer recruitment phase.
WITS' Early Childhood program currently operates within four CPS elementary school, De Diego, Hibbard, Haugan, and Peabody Elementary Schools. At these schools, 93% of students are from low-income families and 96% are representative of minority families.
Starting in the 2008-2009 school year, we will conduct a teacher-based evaluation on our Early Childhood students.

Reading Skills

According to treatment and control teachers, Power Lunch students showed more improvement than non-Power Lunchers in 6 reading areas assessed: reading comprehension (72% vs. 50%), vocabulary (75% vs. 42%), reading ability (73% vs. 49%), listening comprehension (73% vs. 48%), attention span (49% vs. 36%), and ability to articulate thoughts (69% vs. 51%).
Teachers reported that at by the end of the year, 23% more Power Lunch students were reading at or above grade level than at the beginning of the year compared to only 4% more for the control group.
Reading confidence increased by 16% over the course of the year for Power Lunch participants and only increased by 1% for students who did not participate in Power Lunch.

Reading Attitudes and Enjoyment

According to teachers, students who attended Power Lunch increased their enthusiasm for reading by 20% throughout the course of the year compared to only 6% for the control group.
Students who were classified as voracious readers increased by 28% during the year for Power Lunch attendees versus only 5% for the control group.
The number of Power Lunch students with specialized reading interests increased by 9% during the year while the control group saw no change from pretest to posttest.
Students spending time reading about their favorite topics increase by 24% for Power Lunch students compared to only 10% for the control group.

Program Enjoyment

81% of students in the Power Lunch program reported that they enjoyed the Power Lunch program a lot, with an additional 11% reporting that they enjoyed the program a little.
82% of students reported that they enjoyed reading with their tutor a lot, with an additional 12% reporting that they enjoyed it a little.
89% of volunteers reported that they were satisfied or very satisfied with their relationship with their student.
92% of volunteers reported that they were satisfied or very satisfied with their experience as a WITS tutor.

Reading Performance

65% of students who participated in the Workplace Mentoring program met or exceeded reading performance levels on the ISAT exam compared to only 50% of control group students. This result is statistically significant.

Reading Skills

Workplace Mentoring students who enjoy reading a book often increased by 2% from pre-test to post-test while the control students saw a 4% decline over the same time period.
Over the course of the school year, more workplace mentoring students improved their reading comprehension than the control students (65% vs. 54%).
Listening comprehension improved in 65% of Workplace Mentoring students while only improving in 49% of control students.
Vocabulary improved 58% in Workplace Mentoring students while only increasing 44% in control group students.
61% of Workplace Mentoring students improved their reading ability throughout the course of the year while only 51% of control group students improved.
The ability to articulate thoughts improved in 65% of Workplace Mentoring students while only 53% of control group students showed improvement.
56% of Workplace Mentoring students improved their attention span compared to only 40% of control group students.

WPM ISAT results