Sit Stay Read Inc.
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Mission Statement
SitStayRead uses an engaging, evidence-based curriculum, skilled staff, trained volunteer Book Buddies, and Certified Reading Assistance Dogs to advance the literacy skills of kindergarten through second-grade students in the city of Chicago. We serve Chicago schools and community-based organizations where 90% of students live in low-income households or are housing insecure and 60% of third graders score below the national reading average. Schools report higher attendance, greater confidence and increased performance in classrooms that receive our enrichment programs which have been informed by research on Social Emotional Learning, dual-language acquisition, and the human-dog bond.
About This Cause
In 2024-25 Sit Stay Read reentered Chicago Public Schools as a "no-cost vendor" for the first time since the onset of COVID, starting in the Pilsen and Austin neighborhoods. A new partnership with Chicago Public Libraries to provide family literacy events in conjunction with CPL's Jump Into Reading initiative began in October and has already been expanded for the spring of 2025. Bilingual programming expands to K, 1st and 2nd Grades and Science of Reading approaches have been centered for all levels. Solid reading skills gained in elementary school form the foundation for virtually all future learning. No matter what we want kids to absorb later, they must first be able to collect information through reading and share information through writing. When children start to fall behind in elementary school, it gets harder and harder for them to catch up. According to a 2012 Annie E. Casey Foundation study, students who do not read at grade-level by 3rd Grade are more likely to drop out of school and over their lifetime earn far less than their peers who have high school diplomas. Poverty negatively affects both mental and physical health and also increases exposure to crime and violence. By bringing non-judgmental dogs and supportive volunteers into classrooms, we are changing the learning environment, inspiring readers and working to stop this cycle of poverty and crime. We focus on kids facing tough life challenges because we want to do the most good with our limited funding. In our partner schools, at least 90 percent of the children qualify for lunch subsidies and at least 60 percent of the 3rd Grade kids read below grade level. We refer to data published by Chicago Public School and the US Department of Education. Each SitStayRead classroom visit includes five key components – reading, discussion, writing, social emotional learning, and leveraging the canine-human bond during time spent with one of our Certified Reading Assistance Dogs. All literacy skills are addressed: listening, speaking, reading, and writing, as well as critical thinking, imagination, and agency. Each grade focuses on specific literacy development skills. The Kindergarten program, Little Buddies, practices reading common high-frequency sight words and to identifying key details in a story. A bilingual version of this program was rolled out in the 2022-23 school year and reach is growing at a time when Chicago's demographics have created a greater need for bilingual enrichment for its youngest students as they acclimate to school life. The 1st Grade Barkin' Buddies program focuses on big picture literacy skills like character identification, sequencing and listening comprehension. A new bilingual program curricula for this age group was launched in the 2023-24 school year. The 2nd Grade Tail Blazers program incorporates approaches from the Science of Reading, phonics and decoding. The aim is to improve reading fluency while building decoding and comprehension tools, and offering opportunity for longer written expression. A revised curricula informed by Sit Stay Read's bilingual program and DEI work rolls out in 2024-25 school year. The 3rd Grade Poetry Pals program is currently on hiatus and will be revised for relaunch in 2025-26. Goals are to improve reading comprehension, while also building confidence and skill with written expression. This curricula will be revised in FY25 in conjunction with third party evaluation partners from one of Chicago's research universities. Family Literacy Events provide an arena for modeling read aloud story times for parents and guardians, as well as opportunities to partner with other literacy organizations who serve low literacy and non naive English speaking adults who care for the students we work with. Annually Sit Stay Read distributes thousands of books for helping our students establish and build home libraries, as well as summer reading kits to motivate these kids and their families to embrace reading all summer, when many learning set backs occur in homes with few or no age-appropriate books. Across all of our programming, we are working to increase reading fluency, build comprehension skills, improve written expression, establish positive attitudes towards reading and writing and develop an understanding of and connection with dogs. Based on grade level, our students engage with their featured book in several different ways; including reading the book as a whole class through a read aloud with the Program Leader, reading the book in small groups through choral or echo reading with volunteers or reading the book one-on-one with a Dog Team. The class then discusses the book in detail and engages in a brainstorming session, so the kids can prepare to write their own stories based on the lesson plan’s writing objective. The students are very proud of their stories and they have the option of adding illustrations. At the end of the program, each child becomes a published author and receives a bound book with every story that they wrote during their time with SitStayRead. With our proven canine-based curricula, the students read about dogs, think about dogs, interact with dogs and write about dogs. All of their senses are focused during that hour – and they love it. To keep our kids excited about reading and writing all year long, we send them home for the summer with brand-new Summer Reading Fun Packs. To encourage writing, they receive notebooks and pencils. To encourage reading, they receive several age-appropriate books. They also get one higher-level and one lower-level book to share with their family and friends so they have the chance to pass on their excitement about reading. We want our students to know that they are important – and that reading is important too. Many kids have told us that these were the very first new books they ever owned.