About Us

Recognizing the Risk

“Young children need to have fun with books so they're excited about learning to read. Some kids are already behind by the time they start school.”

--Rebecca Pugh of the North Lawndale Learning Community in Chicago

Tens of thousands of children in underserved Chicago neighborhoods are missing crucial early literacy experiences that can determine their lifetime success. The StoryBus program hopes to reverse this alarming trend. Delivering the best teaching techniques to educators working with children ages 3 to 6 in low-income Chicago neighborhoods, the StoryBus is the first of its kind: a children's museum on wheels that acts as a culminating event to a story-based pre-k and kindergarten curriculum.

Giving Reading a Jump-Start

“With each new year it becomes more and more obvious that reading is the key to progress. Reading is the basis of everything else that children learn.”

--Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley

To read by the nationally mandated benchmark of third grade, a child must start reading in the earliest years. The StoryBus curriculum is implemented in childcare centers and pre-school and kindergarten classrooms in the Chicago area during the school year. Recipients of the Kohl McCormick Early Childhood Teaching Awards continuously advise on StoryBus exhibit design and create the curriculum.

Investing in Children's Futures

“We have reached a point where it is time to move beyond awareness to action in early childhood education.”

--Adele Simmons, Vice Chair of Chicago Metropolis 2020, a consortium of Chicago business leaders that supports early childhood education

You can help Chicago children learn to read by supporting the StoryBus. Please join us in bringing children aboard.