Moms & Dads Talk: A Prescription to Read?

A recent New York Times article, Rx: Read to Your Baby,  highlighted the obvious importance of promoting literacy at a young age. 

The article described the Reach Out and Read Program, implemented at New York’s Bellevue Hospital. The program is expanding, perhaps even revolutionizing, pediatricians’ roles in impacting their young patients' long-term heath by encouraging literacy. 

Developed in 1989, the Reach Out and Read Program supplies seven million free books a year to 3.8 million children and trains doctors to give age-appropriate advice to parents about reading to their children.

Research suggests that for all children, a language-rich environment from birth significantly improves cognitive and language development as well as school-readiness.

Because many families visit their pediatricians frequently -- especially between birth to three years-of-age -- doctors wield much influence in developing positive health practices, such as literacy. The program uses books, and doctors’ encouragement of them, to help children label the world around them, understand its nuance and develop new vocabulary for their surroundings.  The result is that children are better able to communicate and reason.

 The article suggests that “low-income children hear as many as 30 million fewer words than their more affluent peers before kindergarten.” Consequently, a regular prescription of reading aloud, picture identification and valuable exchange does much to enhance their communication skills.

In a media-saturated world where new educational DVDs and hand-held devices are marketed with abandon, I applaud the mission of the Reach Out and Read Program. 

Certainly the research supports the developmental benefits for young children of early and regular exposure to the written word. But I am reminded of all the priceless moments captured with a child when huddled around a good book. Whether buried deep under a mound of blankets or lit only by a single flashlight, the physical and emotional benefits are nearly as great as the intellectual ones. 

More pediatricians should take a cue from their colleagues who have adopted the Reach Out and Read Principles. A book is a treasure to be shared and reading with your kids is a part of childhood to be cherished.