Early Childhood

Celebrating Children’s Development & Supporting Early Identification

Connecting families to the services and support they need for parents-to-be, infants, and young children. We can help you with what you may need right now, and your own parent leadership development, too.

About Us / Our Programs / Early Childhood

Read, Play, Grow!

Engaging Families in supporting and celebrating child development

Parents and caregivers know their children best—they are their child’s first and most important teachers. Read, Play, Grow! helps families with young children access valuable resources to support their child’s healthy development and overall well-being.

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Reach Out and Read New Jersey gives young children a foundation for success by incorporating books into pediatric care and encouraging families to read aloud together. Check out their resources to help families experience the power of shared reading. From reading tips in English and Spanish to diverse book recommendations, you will find a list of our favorite resources to add to your activities at home.

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Monitoring and celebrating every child’s early development is important. The CDC’s Learn the Signs. Act Early.” program has free resources for families. Developmental monitoring is observing how a child grows and changes over time to see whether they are reaching developmental milestones in how they play, learn, speak, act, and move at each age. Download the CDC’s Milestone TrackerApp today on iOS and Android devices in English and Spanish to track your child’s milestones. The app has illustrated checklists, tips, photos, and videos to make tracking milestones easy and fun.

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Connecting NJ provides mothers, fathers, grandparents, and guardians free or affordable access to people, organizations, and other sources of information needed to raise healthy children. Contact the Connecting NJ hub in your county or complete the online referral form to access child development resources, including free developmental screening and follow up support from Early Childhood Specialists. Developmental Screening takes a closer look at how your child is developing. The tools used for developmental screening are formal questionnaires or checklists based on research that ask questions about a child’s development, including language, movement, thinking, behavior, and emotions.

Resources & Materials

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It’s never too early to start reading to your child! From sweet stories perfect for snuggling up with babies to tips on getting energetic toddlers and preschoolers to sit still for storytime, you’ll find these book recommendations helpful to make reading together a cherished part of every day.

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Booklists! | PBS KIDS for Parents

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Parent Engagement Cards | Parent Engagement Cards are based on New Jersey’s Birth to Three Early Learning Standards. They were developed by the New Jersey Coalition of Infant/Toddler Educators in collaboration with the New Jersey Association for Infant Mental Health, the New Jersey Council for Young Children, and the SPAN Parent Advocacy Network.

Vroom Tips™ help you do more with your shared moments. Add learning to mealtime, bathtime, bedtime, or anytime with 1,000+ fun, free activities.

CDC/VROOM Poster | This new Milestones Matter poster from CDC and Vroom highlights the importance of tracking a child’s development and using brain-building tips to add learning to everyday moments. English PDF | Spanish PDF

A Year of Play from Zero to Three. You are your child’s favorite toy. There is nothing in the world your child would rather do than play with you! Un año de juegos Usted es el juguete favorito de su hijo. No existe nada en el mundo que le guste más a su hijo que jugar con usted.

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Child Developmental Passport: English / Spanish | A tool that parents can use along with the Center for Disease Control’s (CDC’s) Milestones Checklists to track their child’s health, wellness, and development.

“Concerned About Your Child’s Development?” in ASL | The CDC’s “Learn the Signs. Act Early.” program has released a new video resource in American Sign Language (ASL) to help increase the accessibility of messaging for ASL communities and families.

Are you concerned about your child’s development? Available in English, Spanish, Chinese, Gujarati, Portuguese, and Tagalog, this Next Steps guide provides information to connect families of young children in New Jersey with resources for developmental evaluation, services, and support.

Act Early Resilience Toolkit

Building resilience, or the ability to endure and grow from adversity, involves strengthening knowledge of parenting and child development, social connections and networks of support, and the social and emotional competence of children. The “Learn the Signs. Act Early.” Resilience Toolkit provides resources for supporting the developmental health and resiliency of children ages 3-5 and their families.

Child Care and NJ Law Against Discrimination (Legal Responsibilities and Resources for After School Care) and Inclusion of Children with Special Needs in Child Care and After School Settings. (After School Inclusion Tips Guide) Download the package.

Contact Us

Deepa Srinivasavaradan

Director of Early Childhood Initiatives
(609) 665-2696