Volunteer
By volunteering with Better Basics, you can be a part of helping children learn, grow and thrive. Better Basics offers several opportunities to support student learning. Volunteers are trained by Better Basics for the area they serve. Completed background checks are required before meeting with students.
Academic Tutoring
Volunteers partner one-on-one with early elementary students to strengthen essential early literacy skills. Using personalized lesson materials created by our certified educators, volunteers meet with the same student once a week for 20 weeks—building consistency, confidence, and a meaningful connection. Each week, the volunteer gifts the student a brand-new book to take home, helping grow their home library and fostering a lifelong love of reading.
Wise Words
Wise Words is a whole-class literacy enrichment program designed to grow vocabulary—one of the most critical drivers of reading comprehension. Wise Words brings volunteers into first grade classrooms to provide interactive, book-based activities. Volunteers visit once a week for 20 weeks, using simple, pre-planned lessons that make it easy to guide students. Every student receives a new book at the program’s end, celebrating their learning and encouraging continued reading at home.
Better Basics Reads
Better Basics Reads mobilizes community volunteers for single-day, coordinated reading events across school districts in Greater Birmingham. Volunteers read aloud in Pre-K–5th grade classrooms, and every student receives a copy of the featured book to take home. This signature event celebrates literacy, strengthens community partnerships, and helps build home libraries for thousands of children. Better Basics Reads takes place each Spring.