Insight: Parent expectations for what their child should be able to do in reading both before and after they enter school is the biggest driver of parent engagement

Laying the Foundation for Impact: Systems Change 2015 - 2017

Read Charlotte is a ten-year community-wide initiative uniting parents, educators and community partners to improve children’s literacy from birth through third grade. Our goal is for 80% of students in Charlotte-Mecklenburg to reach College & Career Ready by third grade. Here is a highlight of our major accomplishments in the first 5 years of this systems change and grassroots work.

RESEARCH & BUILDING THE FRAMEWORK

Devoted over 1,000 hours reviewing primary research on “what works” to improve literacy to make sure we focus on the right things.

• We identified birth-to-third grade indicators to improve literacy, which formed the basis for our “Reading Success Pathway”

• We shared these insights with dozens of stakeholders in Charlotte-Mecklenburg and beyond, giving over 300 presentations to local organizations in the first two years

• Used these insights to build a roadmap for strategic action with four working groups to “stack and align” the most effective literacy interventions

2016

BOOKS ON BREAK ACTIVE READING WORKSHOPS

Promising Pages replicated the Books on Break model from Book Harvest in Durham, North Carolina. Since 2016, Promising Pages hosted 40 book fairs in 27 CMS schools, distributing 104,749 books to children to read during school breaks.

2017

Created Active Reading workshops, filling a key gap in the market to train families in how to use children’s picture books to build children’s language, vocabulary and oral reading skills. In Summer 2017, transferred ownership to the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Library. To date 3,625 adults have been trained in Active Reading. Multiple communities in North Carolina and other parts of the country have been trained in Active Reading and are replicating this work.

2015

SYSTEMS CHANGE WORKSHOPS

Hosted three two-day systems change workshops in January, May and November 2016 with over 100 participants at each session. This laid the foundation for Read Charlotte’s work combining a focus on both supporting effective programs and improving systems. REACH OUT AND READ

Read Charlotte partnered with Reach Out and Read Carolinas (RORC) to strategically expand their program over a three-year period. We met our goal to expand the number of RORC clinics from 13 to 35 clinics. In 2016, RORC conducted approximately 44,000 well visits annually in 13 clinical locations. In the three years since our partnership, RORC reported over 127,000 well-visits at 35 active sites, of which the majority of the sites are located in low-income ZIP codes. We helped to strengthen partnerships between RORC, Atrium Health and Novant Health.