Organization and Contact
Program Overview
Our Mission is to ensure that all students gain the literacy skills they need to become successful, confident, and joyful readers. Joyful Readers is focused on providing solutions that fill this persistent reading proficiency gap by equipping students with foundational literacy skills. We bring full-time tutors directly into Philadelphia public schools to provide daily, intensive reading tutoring to K-3 students.
Our tutors are AmeriCorps service members who dedicate a full year to advancing early literacy. They begin with a month of intensive September training that combines AIM Pathways to Proficient Reading coursework, Wilson Language Training Fundations Launch Workshops, and repeated practice of instructional activities to ensure readiness. After training, tutors are placed in small teams at elementary schools, where they provide daily 30-minute tutoring sessions to pairs of students. Each tutor carries a caseload of about 22 students, working consistently with the same children every day to deliver targeted, research-based instruction and accelerate literacy growth.