Doctors, nurses join Reach Out and Read program

Doctors and nurses are sending families home from checkups with free books and a very important prescription — “read aloud to your children.”

Funding from First Things First is allowing six medical providers in Yuma County to participate in the Reach Out and Read program. They are providing books to more than 3,740 local children annually.

The participating medical providers include the San Luis Walk-in Clinic in San Luis and Somerton, nurse practitioner Karen A. Watts, Yuma Kids Clinic, Yuma Children's Clinic and Desert Sky Family Clinic of Yuma.

Reach Out and Read serves children in more than 185 locations across the state of Arizona, reaching more than 117,056 infants, toddlers and preschoolers each year.

“Reach Out and Read prepares America's youngest children to succeed in school by partnering with doctors to prescribe books and encourage families to read together,” said Irene Garza, Reach Out and Read Yuma coordinator and vice-chair of the Regional Partnership Council.

Doctors, nurse practitioners and other medical professionals incorporate Reach Out and Read into regular pediatric checkups. They advise parents about the importance of reading aloud and giving developmentally appropriate books to children.

The program begins at the six-month checkup and continues through age 5.

“Through Reach Out and Read, each child starts kindergarten with a home library of up to 10 books and a parent who has heard at every health supervision visit about the importance of books and reading,” Garza said.

“We at Desert Sky Family Clinic of Yuma are truly passionate about educating our families to the importance of reading to their children,” Ana M. Rivera, family nurse practitioner, said.

“We feel that reading is an activity that increases bonding but also learning of language skills. We feel that exposure to reading as young as six months will increase that child's ability to learn sounds of letters and ultimately develop the beginning of language.”

Patricia Rodriguez, also a family nurse practitioner at Desert Sky, noted parents are the “best first teachers” for their children and the strongest influence in a child's ability to develop to their full potential.

“So as medical providers we encourage and nurture parents to read,” Rodriguez said. “Many studies have shown that reading aids in being successful in school. This is shown by good grades, completion of school assignments, and children learn to like school, in which they develop a positive self-esteem.”

They both stressed that the program encourages, along “with reading, reading and more reading,” a healthy sense of learning.

“We at Desert Sky Family Clinic of Yuma will continue to promote and embrace this type of activity, so that the children of Yuma County will benefit, not only in their own futures, but for the future of generations to come,” Rodriguez said.

Garza pointed out recent comments from a national expert who spoke in Tempe last month. She noted that parents, principals and policymakers hoping to increase student achievement in reading need to look to the crib, not the classroom.

“Research demonstrates that knowledge and attention when kids start kindergarten are reliable predictors of 4th grade reading ability,” said Dr. Kathy Hirsh-Pasek, a prominent researcher who runs the Infant Language Laboratory at Temple University.

“If you really want to get kids up to snuff, you have to focus on language development, and you have to start much earlier.”

Hirsh-Pasek said the past 15 years have yielded great scientific insight into the brain function of infants and toddlers, and that much more is going on in the minds of young kids than we can see.

“Babies are not empty vessels; babies are explorers and discoverers, looking for patterns in everything they hear,” Hirsh-Pasek said. “They are statisticians, computing what they hear and turning it in to sophisticated language.”

To help young children develop crucial language skills before they enter school, we need to focus on six basic principles, Hirsh-Pasek said.

They include:

• Children learn what they hear most — frequency matters.

• Children learn words for things and events that interest them.

• Interactive and responsive environments build language learning.

• Children learn best in meaningful contexts.

• Children need to hear diverse examples of words and language structures.

• Vocabulary and grammar develop together.

What those principles boil down to is that children need to be talked to often, in meaningful ways and by adults in their lives, Hirsh-Pasek said.

She added that this information is critical for families living in poverty and families where parents don't speak English, because their children are much less likely to hear frequent, diverse language. As a result, the children arrive at kindergarten already behind in language development.

She offered ways that policymakers and educators can use this information to raise student achievement, including starting language and literacy development efforts much earlier (“4 years old is too late”); having a curriculum that covers all areas of development and includes the classroom, home and community; mandating professional development for teachers working with the youngest kids; and ensuring that efforts to educate children from birth through grade school are aligned.

Because 80 percent of a young child's time is spent outside a formal learning setting, it is critical that communities use the six principles, too, focusing on places where kids go with their families, like parks and grocery stories, Hirsh-Pasek said.

“We need to make sure everybody gets it, and that they are using this in ways that make sense for young kids in their community,” she said.

“The more we can rally communities to work together on behalf of young children, and the younger we start, the better off we'll be.”

Rhian Evans Allvin, CEO of First Things First, said Hirsh-Pasek's comments come at a crucial time, as policymakers begin a new legislative session. With 1 in 4 Arizona third graders failing state standardized reading tests, it's time to look beyond traditional approaches to help fix the problem, she said.