The American Academy of Pediatrics, at today’s meeting of the Clinton Global Initiative in Denver, is expected to announce a new policy that asks its members to become powerful advocates for reading aloud every time a baby visits the doctor, the New York Times reports.
Representing about 62,000 pediatricians across the US, the AAP has long worked with programs like Reach Out & Read to promote literacy. For example, through the academy’s Illinois chapter, Reach Out & Read, an evidence-based nonprofit that promotes early literacy and school readiness during check-ups in pediatric exam rooms by giving books to children and advice to parents about the importance of reading aloud, serves more than 130,000 children and distributes more than 150,000 books annually in its 126 locations.
What’s new is that the recommendation from pediatricians to read aloud used to begin at 6 months of age, and in the new policy, written by Dr Pamela High, parents are going to be told to read aloud to their children from birth on. “It should be there each time we touch bases with children,” the Times quoted her as saying. Parents should be “reading together as a daily fun family activity” from infancy.
The Reach Out & Read organization, which says more than a dozen published studies show children served by its programs have larger vocabularies, higher comprehension skills, and more deeply engaged parents, has established a partnership for this new initiative with Too Small to Fail, a joint effort between the nonprofit Next Generation and the Bill, Hillary and Chelsea Clinton Foundation that is aimed at closing that word gap. Hillary Rodham Clinton is expected to announce at today’s meeting that Scholasitc, the children’s book publisher, will donate 500,000 books to children through the Reach Out & Read program.
While the Reach Out & Read program trains doctors and nurses to advise parents about the importance of reading aloud, placing a special emphasis on children growing up in poverty, the Too Small to Fail organization will be developing materials that can be sent to doctors that will give some further advice on encouraging parents to read to their children.
Can this reduce the gap between rich kids and poor kids when it comes to literacy, knowing the joy of reading, or even having a few books in their homes?
