News
Smart Start of Mecklenburg County and Dolly Parton's Imagination Library are working together to bring books to Mecklenburg County's youngest children through funding provided by the North Carolina General Assembly.
A comprehensive review of research on several measures of the quality of early childhood education suggests that the instructional practices of preschool teachers have the largest impact on young children's academic and social skills.
The Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP) that insures around 9 million children over 256,000 in NC alone -- expired September 30, 2017.
Read Charlotte announced last Monday that its new initiative, called "Reading Heroes," will highlight members of the community who are doing extraordinary things to improve children's literacy from birth through third grade in Charlotte-Mecklenburg.
NoDa Brewing Company has been a financial supporter of the Dolly Parton Imagination Library in Mecklenburg County since 2015.
The "Creating Opportunity: An Action Plan for Early Childhood Education" has been presented to the Mecklenburg Board of County Commissioners.
Join Child & Family Development at their next free seminar to learn about development during ages 2-5 years and how to build sensory-motor skill-building activities into everyday routines.
Smart Start of Mecklenburg County is proud to Support Astronomers without Borders and Explore Scientific in their quest to collect eclipse glasses to be sent to schools in South America and Asia when eclipses cross those continents in 2019.
Charlotte Strong is designed to engage individuals, corporations and community constituents in FREE or donation based activities by creating a month long calendar of physical activities and events.
Attention early childhood teachers, family child care providers, and those who support them: Your work in supporting children's healthy social and emotional development can have a big impact on their long-term success in school and beyond.
North Carolina's pre-kindergarten program has supported over 350,000 children in multiple areas of learning and development, according to a new summary report from the Frank Porter Graham Child Development Institute (FPG) at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Below is an updated table summarizing the provisions impacting early childhood programs included in the FINAL FY2017-2019 compromise budget.
Routines, tantrums, mealtimes, teachable moments, bedtime rituals, descriptive praise.
Smart Start of Mecklenburg County is pleased to announce the selection of Nancy Hughes as its new executive director effective July 24, 2017.
Did you know that 85% of a child's intellect, personality and social skills are developed in the first 3 years of life? Since babies don't come with an instruction manual, all parents need a little guidance on how to make the most of these critical years for their children.
For many neighbors in Charlotte, summer brings a time of great need.
The NC Pathways to Grade-Level Reading initiative is building on North Carolina's history of innovation and success to tackle one of the greatest challenges facing the state: the overwhelming majority of our children, especially those from low-income families, are not reading proficiently by the end of third grade.
A grant of $100,000 from The Belk Foundation to the Charlotte Mecklenburg Library Foundation will dramatically expand the Library's efforts to address the challenge of third grade reading proficiency through Active Reading training.
Fruits and vegetables benefit kids in many ways, including improved nutrition, decreased obesity risk and better school performance, but most children don't get the recommended five or more servings of fruits and vegetables a day.
The Trust for Public Land works to protect the places people care about and to create close-to-home parks-particularly in and near cities, where 80 percent of Americans live.
Here are Governor Cooper's budget highlights of Investments in Early Learning: Expands funding and eliminates the waitlist for NC Pre-K so that by July 1, 2018 an estimated additional 4,668 at-risk four-year olds will receive high quality pre-kindergarten classes.
Positive parenting can overcome the effects of poverty on brain development in adolescents, according to a new report published in the Journal of the American Medical Association.
Aligning Early Childhood Environment Rating Scale (ECERS-R) with Farm to Preschool (F2P) The North Carolina Farm to Preschool Network (NCFPN) was convened in May 2015 by ASAP (Appalachian Sustainable Agriculture Project) and NC CACFP (Child and Adult Care Food Program).
Smart Start of Mecklenburg County is pleased to announce it has received a $300,000 grant from the Vanguard Community Stewardship program.
Dolly Parton's Imagination Library is a program that mails out children a free book each month from birth up until 5 years old.
The Y is pleased to announce it has been selected to receive a $124,700 grant from the Vanguard Capital for Kids Program.
The study Lead researcher Walter Gilliam knew that to get an accurate measure of implicit bias among preschool teachers, he couldn't be fully transparent with his subjects about what, exactly, he was trying to study.
In a technology-driven age, infants' and toddlers' exposure to "screen time" is a hot topic.
Children who were enrolled in North Carolina's early childhood programs performed better throughout elementary school, with gains lasting through fifth grade, according to a study by Duke University researchers.