Read Charlotte is a capacity-building intermediary that supports local partners to apply evidence-based knowledge about effective reading instruction and interventions, high-quality execution, continuous improvement, and data analysis to improve reading outcomes. We are designed to sunset in 2030. A significant focus is the introduction of strategies that can be integrated into the community without continuous support from Read Charlotte. Read on to learn more about the results of programs, practices, and resources Read Charlotte has been a part of, now and in past years.
Queen City Readers™ (QCR), a kindergarten tutoring curriculum that helps build basic word reading skills, was developed by Read Charlotte in 2023. It was designed to be turnkey, so that community groups can use it independently, and to have the potential for great reach, so that scale among community groups is possible.
The spring 2023 pilot showed promising results. Students appeared to experience meaningful improvements in phonemic awareness and decoding.
Our community’s use of QCR has continued to grow since the pilot. Seven community-based organizations used it in the 2024-25 school year, along with Pineville Elementary School. In all, more than 950 sessions have been delivered so far.
Our Read Together initiative, which launched in 2023, is a collaborative effort with partner organizations to have more children in Mecklenburg County experience reading together with their families. It’s built around the importance of this simple yet powerful practice, which is a proven strategy to build children’s language, vocabulary, and comprehension skills.
We’re working with partners to raise awareness around the importance of reading together, create resources like ReadTogetherCLT.org, and help to identify and reduce possible barriers for families. A marketing campaign designed to reach local families has resulted in more than 100,000 visitors to the website, more than 2 million engagements on social media, and more than 400,000 complete video views.
We hold regular Read Together meetings to continue to foster collaboration around the practice, and around partners’ direct work with children and families.
Changes in how resources are used – whether pooled funds or aligned funds – is a form of system change. Since 2016, Read Charlotte has led a local collaborative of funders (strategic co-funders) to support a portfolio of projects in Charlotte-Mecklenburg. Read Charlotte originated these projects, seeking to either scale up existing initiatives or seed and test new ideas. A total of $8.3 million from nearly two dozen local funders co-funded 16 projects, creating a strong example of funder collaboration.
Abundant research since the 1980s pointed to dialogic reading – the practice of talking with children about words, language, and ideas during shared reading – as a highly effective practice for building vocabulary and oral comprehension skills. But no one had programmatized this for families. In 2016 and 2017, we partnered with the Charlotte Mecklenburg Library to develop Active Reading training, teaching adults the ABCs of Active Reading: Ask questions, Build vocabulary, and Connect text to children’s worlds. Since 2017, more than 9,800 adults have been trained in Active Reading through participation in workshops and training sessions offered by Charlotte Mecklenburg Library. Active Reading strategies are also incorporated into daily Storytimes, with over 63,000 parents and children benefiting from learning these practices since 2021. This program and strategy has spread to other communities in North Carolina and as far away as Philadelphia.
In 2016, we partnered with Promising Pages to bring the Books on Break model developed by Book Harvest in Durham, N.C. to Mecklenburg County. Books on Break provides free pop-up book fairs at targeted CMS elementary schools before summer breaks. Pre-K to fifth grade students get the opportunity to select five books and a drawstring bag to keep and take home. The majority of these books come from children who have simply outgrown them, making Books on Break the largest book donation project in the Charlotte region. Books on Break is now one of Promising Pages’ core programs that it operates each year. Through spring 2024, Promising Pages has held a total of 135 book fairs, through which it distributed 403,194 books to 68,504 students.
In 2017, Read Charlotte partnered with Reach Out and Read Carolinas to co-develop a business plan to scale this proven, evidence-based program, where medical providers encourage families to read and build children’s language through well-child visits from birth through 5 years old. Through partnership with Novant Health, Atrium Health, Mecklenburg County Public Health, community health clinics, and independent medical practices, Reach Out and Read Carolinas has expanded its reach from 13 locations in 2016 to 42 at present time. This scaling means approximately 39,969 children in Mecklenburg County experience Reach Out and Read in their routine wellness visits.
Over 300 local healthcare professionals have been trained and are committed to integrating the Reach Out and Read model into their practice for children, which amounts to 107,346 annual touchpoints with children birth to 5 years old.
Independent, peer-reviewed studies substantiate the program’s impact, making it the most extensively supported psychosocial intervention in general pediatrics.
The impact of this collaboration is transformative, creating a ripple effect for students entering Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools in 2024 and beyond. By embedding the Reach Out and Read model into the clinic culture, healthcare professionals are not just promoting literacy but are also ensuring better health and developmental outcomes for the next generation. This partnership stands as a testament to the power of community collaboration in fostering moments that matter for families of young children.
In 2016, we came across encouraging research about a new text messaging service called Ready4K, which provides helpful nudges to parents of young children about easy things they can do at home to help their children’s early development. In 2017, we brought Ready4K to Mecklenburg County and experimented with a variety of outreach strategies with local partners. In 2020, we began partnering with Smart Start of Mecklenburg County, which now directly manages Ready4K in our community.
Based upon a March 2022 family survey, 95% of respondents said they did Ready4K activities at least once per week with their children and 100% found the Ready4K texts helpful. One parent said, “I have forgotten what it’s like to be a kid in many ways. These messages help give me perspective and real world examples. I like the tips.” (Note: 232 of 1,081 active users in Charlotte-Mecklenburg responded to the survey.)
Read Charlotte brought the Summer Literacy Infusion (SLI) initiative to Mecklenburg County in 2017, after learning about it from Readby4th in Philadelphia.
SLI adds one hour of literacy a day to summer camp programs to combat summer learning loss. We believed the program model offered a low-cost, high-impact opportunity to enhance the summer learning ecosystem in Charlotte-Mecklenburg.
We partnered with the YMCA of Greater Charlotte, which agreed to pilot the program at two of its Y branches in summer 2017 and help support implementation at one additional school-based program site operated by the Discovery Place. After positive first-year results for just over 200 students, the program was scaled each subsequent year to serve more children at more sites.
The YMCA now uses SLI at its own summer camps at Y branches and supports SLI adoption at other community organizations. In summer 2024, 31 agencies participated at 32 different sites, and 97% of campers maintained or improved their reading skills. Over 10,000 campers have been served since the beginning of this partnership.
Assessment to Instruction, or A2i, was a web-based platform that combined quick, adaptive assessments of word reading, vocabulary, and comprehension with evidence-based algorithms for Pre-K-3rd grades. It helped teachers identify the reading needs of each child, providing recommendations for how to use classroom time with existing curricular materials for every child in their classroom.
Read Charlotte brought A2i to Mecklenburg County after tracking the research behind it, which showed strong evidence of improving K-3rd grade outcomes. It was used in various ways in our community.
A2i Professional Support System
Seven local schools (one charter, and six within Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools) piloted the A2i classroom platform for teachers during the 2021-22 and 2022-23 school years.
A2i After School
Read Charlotte worked with Learning Ovations, the company behind A2i, to bring an adapted out-of-school version of the platform to Mecklenburg County in 2021. We developed a system of coaching, training, and support for local organizations to use the platform to be able to deliver high-impact tutoring within their existing programs. Ten community organizations used A2i After School, serving more than 1,200 students.
A2i Pre-K
Read Charlotte worked with MECK Pre-K and Smart Start of Mecklenburg County to pilot the A2i Pre-K platform beginning in the 2022-23 school year. The pilot focused on exploring how A2i could assist and enhance Pre-K teachers’ and coaches’ use of existing curricular materials to individualize reading instruction and meet a range of Pre-K student needs. After the initial pilot in 10 classrooms, end-of-year MECK Pre-K assessments showed 86.6% of students at or exceeding grade level. In the 2023-24 school year, the pilot was expanded to 30 classrooms. On average, all 30 sites exceeded expected growth for vocabulary by 2.5 months, and MECK Pre-K reported that 92% of the students in the A2i classrooms finished their Pre-K school year as readers in the A2i system. (Methodology: A2i assessments – Grade Level Equivalent.)
Scholastic, which acquired Learning Ovations in 2022, discontinued support for the A2i platform in 2024. The framework of A2i, a dual focus on code-focused (word reading) and meaning-focused (vocabulary and comprehension) skills, still informs Read Charlotte’s work, as well as that of many of our partners.
In 2017, we launched a three-year initiative with 10 nonprofits to change the way they used and thought about data. Ultimately, eight nonprofits completed it. Several of the nonprofit partners reported that what they learned through the Data Collaborative helped them navigate the uncertainty of the early pandemic months in 2020. One of the best examples of this initiative’s impact came from one of the agency leaders in a February 2020 meeting with the Read Charlotte board: “I’m no longer afraid of data.”
The HELPS reading fluency tutoring program was focused on helping students read with speed, accuracy, and good expression. Reading fluency is an important literacy skill, as students who read too slowly are not able to focus on comprehension.
Read Charlotte assisted in the program’s startup in its first two years in Mecklenburg County. In the first year of local implementation (2018-19), 46% of students who received HELPS tutoring exceeded expected growth in reading fluency. Students who received at least 50 HELPS tutoring sessions grew just over 1.5 grade levels in reading fluency in a single year. Similar results were achieved each year for students in the HELPS program, with more than 3,200 students served in all.
HELPS was an officially endorsed tutoring program by Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools until 2024.
In Fall 2017, we conducted focus groups with families of fourth graders in five high-poverty schools whose children scored at College and Career Ready on their third grade reading assessments in the spring. Our intention was to confirm the functioning of the Home Literacy Model to explain why these children were beating the odds for literacy. (We did.) We learned in this process that there was no “go-to” resource for families to use to support literacy at home. In fall 2018, we launched HomeReadingHelper.org as an easy-to-use resource for families with children from Pre-K through third grade. Since then, the Home Reading Helper has seen more than 1.8 million page views nationwide, and more than 2 million video views. The Home Reading Helper also inspired the creation of the Digital Children’s Reading Initiative at the North Carolina Department of Instruction. Many of the Home Reading Helper resources are used in this resource, which as of July 2022 was linked to every public school district website in the state of North Carolina.
The Reading Checkup was an online tool for families to track their PK-3rd grade child’s reading level. Read Charlotte worked with Learning Ovations, the company behind a web-based literacy platform called A2i, to develop it as the pandemic broke out in spring 2020.
The tool was powered by the A2i platform, which was also used in a variety of other ways in our community. After assessing a child’s reading and vocabulary levels, it provided customized recommendations of family-friendly activities to do at home to build literacy skills. Multiple organizations helped us develop the activities, including Augustine Literacy Project – Charlotte and Helps Education Fund. CMS helped create instructional videos for families on how to do the activities. More than 100 local organizations helped to get the word out to families in summer 2020.
We worked with and learned from local organizations about best practices for using the Reading Checkup with families, which we codified in a Partner Portal. Charlotte Bilingual Preschool developed a program around the Reading Checkup. Black Child Development Institute-Carolinas used the Reading Checkup as a key resource in its family empowerment work. In all, more than 5,100 Checkups were completed.
Scholastic, which acquired Learning Ovations in 2022, discontinued support for the A2i platform in 2024. The framework of A2i, a dual focus on code-focused (word reading) and meaning-focused (vocabulary and comprehension) skills, still informs Read Charlotte’s work, as well as that of many of our partners.
Tutor Charlotte was a collaborative effort to help connect volunteers with tutoring organizations in Mecklenburg County.
Augustine Literacy Project – Charlotte, the Charlotte Executive Leadership Council, Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools, Heart Math Tutoring, Helps Education Fund, and Read Charlotte worked together on the initiative in 2022 to help fill a need for more volunteer tutors in our community post-pandemic. We created TutorCharlotte.org, an easy-to-use website allowing potential volunteers to quickly learn about the three tutoring options and get connected to the organizations. A marketing campaign drove traffic to the site, resulting in more than 12,900 visitors.
Read Charlotte is a community initiative that unites educators, community partners, and families to improve children’s reading from birth to third grade. We don’t run programs. We are a capacity-building intermediary that supports local partners to apply evidence-based knowledge about effective reading instruction and interventions, high-quality execution, continuous improvement, and data analysis to improve reading outcomes.
Read Charlotte is a civic initiative of Foundation For The Carolinas.
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