MAYVILLE – Getting books from the doctor will soon be a routine part of well-child visits at Family Health Medical Services, as doctors and nurses welcome the Reach Out and Read program to the practice. Family Health Medical Services joins more than 3,797 programs nationally that are working to make books part of a healthy childhood.
Reach Out and Read is a simple, yet highly effective concept. The program targets children growing up in poverty and without books and features three key elements:
Volunteers read with children in pediatric clinic waiting areas.
Pediatricians educate parents about the importance of reading with their children every day.
Every child from the age of six months to five years receives a new book to take home and keep when they come in for a well-child checkup.
“Giving a book to a young child, along with age-appropriate advice about sharing books for the parents, may be the only concrete activity a pediatrician can routinely do to promote child development,” commented Barry S. Zuckerman, MD ROR co-founder, and chief of pediatrics at Boston University School of Medicine.
Medical research supports the claim, showing that literacy-promoting interventions by the pediatrician have a significant effect on parental behaviors, beliefs and attitudes toward reading aloud. For more than a decade, studies have indicated that parents who get books and literacy counseling from their doctors and nurses are more likely to read to their young children, read to them more often, and provide more books in the home. In addition, several studies have also shown improvements in the language scores of young children receiving Reach Out and Read.
“Reading with your child is an invitation to conversation,” said Dr. Robert Berke, MD ROR Medical Director at Family Health Services.
For more information about Reach Out and Read at Family Health Medical Services, or if you would like to donate funds or volunteer as a reader, please call 753-7107.
Reach Out and Read is a national, non-profit program that is working to make literacy promotion a standard part of pediatric primary care, so that children grow up with books and a love of reading. ROR trains doctors and nurses about the importance of reading aloud and to give books to children at pediatric check-ups from six months to five years of age, with a special focus on children growing up in poverty. This year, Reach Out and Read will provide more than 4.1 million books to more than 2.5 million children, at over 3,797 programs throughout the country.