Partners in Literacy
Dolly Parton's Imagination Library In 1996, Dolly Parton launched a reading program to benefit the children of her home county in east Tennessee. Dolly wanted to foster a love of reading among her county’s preschool children and their families. She wanted children to be excited about books and to feel the magic that books can create. Eligible children will receive one free age-appropriate book in the mail per month until they reach their fifth birthday. The books distributed by the Dolly Parton Foundation are carefully selected to deliver positive, developmentally important skill opportunities for the targeted children. This service is at no cost to the family. Alamance Partnership for Children is currently providing this service to all children in Alamance County between the ages of birth to five years old.
Smart Start and Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library are working together to get books into the hands of North Carolina’s youngest children. In 2017, North Carolina’s state lawmakers included $3.5 million in the first year and $7 million in the second year of the state budget for Smart Start to administer Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library across North Carolina. The Smart Start network, made up of 75 local partnerships that serve our state’s communities, is signing up families across NC for Imagination Library which is a book gifting program for children from birth to age five. Together, we are working to ensure children develop a love of reading early on. For more information on the Dolly Parton Imagination Library or to enroll, please
contact Penny Scott at 336.513.0063 ext 118 Click HERE to go to the Dolly Parton Imagination Library website!
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The Reach Out and Read® program (ROR) was initially developed and tested in medical practices in Boston, Massachusetts. The program incorporates literacy awareness into health care for young children by educating parents that healthy development for their children goes beyond physical care and encompasses developmental and cognitive care as well. At regularly scheduled well-child visits, doctors ask questions about family reading patterns when completing developmental screenings. They inform parents regarding age-appropriate pre-literacy skills and expectations as well as give tips on effective practices to encourage shared family reading. Beyond that, the doctors give age-appropriate books (provided by the Alamance Partnership for Children) to the children to take home, ensuring that the child’s home environment is print-enriched and thereby reinforcing the importance of reading. ROR is currently being administered out of Burlington Pediatrics on Webb Avenue, Mebane Pediatrics and Kernodle Clinic in Elon. ROR has distributed nearly 5,000 books during well-child visits. Additional offices providing well-child visits are being added.
For more information the Reach Out and Read program, please contact Penny Scott at 336.513.0063 ext. 118 or email pscott@alamancechildren.org.
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