Reach Out and Read
Reach Out and Read, Inc. is a US, non-profit organization that promotes reading. Reach Out and Read envisions a world where every child is read to every day; where parents have daily, meaningful, language-rich interactions with their children.
Reach Out and Read is a national early literacy organization working directly with pediatric care providers to share the lifelong benefits that result from families reading aloud to their children every day. By integrating these experiences into pediatric care and providing the tools and encouragement families need to read aloud together, Reach Out and Read is transforming pediatric care practices and giving children of all backgrounds and means a better start to life.
History
Reach Out and Read was founded in 1989 at Boston Medical Center (then Boston City Hospital) by a group of pediatricians and educators including Robert Needlman, MD, FAAP, Professor of Pediatrics at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine; Pediatrician, MetroHealth Medical Center, Cleveland, OH, and Barry Zuckerman, MD, FAAP, Professor and Chair of Pediatrics and Professor of Public Health at Boston University School of Medicine. This group recognized the profound significance of early childhood in setting the stage for social-emotional health and achievement. To take advantage of this exceptional window of developmental opportunity, where 90% of brain development occurs from birth through age five, they implemented a novel approach: having medical providers empower parents to read to their young children, thereby making reading aloud a "doctor-recommended" activity.
Over three decades, Reach Out and Read has expanded across the country and built its evidence base. Today, more than 6,400 clinical locations nationwide implement the evidence-based model, leveraging the existing health care system for a cost-effective delivery. Their team of 34,000 medical providers distribute 7.4 million new books to 4.8 million children annually.
Program and Methods
Reach Out and Read strives to improve emergent literacy and social-emotional health during the span of rapid brain growth and development between birth and age five, particularly in economically disadvantaged families who are at risk for adverse outcomes. They do this by partnering with trusted pediatric medical professionals who encourage parents to read aloud regularly with their children, and provide the knowledge and tools families need to nurture early learning and provide the best start for their children.
Beginning at birth, pediatric medical teams nationwide coach parents during all infant, toddler and preschool well-child visits about the critical role that reading aloud and telling stories should play in their daily routine with their children. Children also receive a new, age, language and developmentally-appropriate book to bring home and build their home library.
Through special initiatives, Reach Out and Read adapts their intervention to serve special populations, creating a more powerful and individualized intervention. These special initiatives include American Indian/Alaska Native Initiative, Leyendo Juntos Initiative (for Spanish-speaking families), Military Families Initiative, Early Math Initiative, and Developmental Disabilities Initiative.
Reach Out and Read's unique model of integrating literacy into routine pediatric care is designed to meet families where they are; while less than one-third of children in the United States are enrolled in a childcare setting, more than 90% received a well-child check-up every year. With their unique access to pediatric providers, Reach Out and Read reaches the children whose need is greatest, during the most critical time, the first three years of their lives.
Reach Out and Read has demonstrated that reading aloud with infants and toddlers connects to the most significant parts of a child’s development. Shared reading provides children with a fertile learning environment—encouraging curiosity and imagination. It also promotes resilience and mitigates toxic stress. Reach Out and Read starts with early literacy, but naturally extends to social-emotional development, motivation, persistence, confidence, and so much more.
By making literacy promotion a standard part of pediatric care, Reach Out and Read leverages the child development expertise of pediatric medical teams to prepare at-risk children for academic and life success. No other early literacy organization has both the scale to reach millions of children nationwide and the solid evidence base to support program effectiveness.
Evidence Base
The Reach Out and Read program has been the subject of more than a dozen independent studies, the largest body of scientific research for any psychosocial intervention in pediatrics, showing that children served by Reach Out and Read are read to more often, have more books in their home, and enter kindergarten with larger vocabularies, stronger language skills, and a greater affinity towards books and reading.
Endorsed by the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), in their landmark 2014 policy statement, Literacy Promotion: An Essential Component of Primary Care Pediatric Practice, the AAP cited the body of research on Reach Out and Read in calling on pediatric care providers to promote literacy, beginning in infancy. According to the AAP, “Research, in summary, shows that in populations at risk, participation in the [Reach Out and Read] intervention is associated with markedly more positive attitudes toward reading aloud, more frequent reading aloud by parents, improved parent-child interactions, improvements in the home literacy environment, and significant increases in expressive and receptive language in early childhood.” Through the policy statement, the AAP also recommends that literacy promotion be “an essential component of primary care pediatric practice." [vi]
Reach Out and Read is a proud recipient of New York Times columnist and two-time Pulitzer Prize-winner Nick Kristof’s 2019 Holiday Impact Prize. The organization was cited in Kristof and wife Sheryl WuDunn's books Tightrope: Americans Reaching for Hope (2020) and A Path Appears (2014). Krisof and WuDunn cite Reach Out and Read as, “an excellent example of a cost-effective, evidence-based program that helps kids in a crucial window of development.”
Other awards include the 2013 American Hospital Association Award of Honor “to recognize an exemplary contribution to the health and well-being of the people through leadership on a major health policy or social initiative,” the 2013 David M. Rubenstein Prize from the Library of Congress for its “groundbreaking advancement of literacy,” and the 2014 Carle Angel Honor for its “tireless promotion of early literacy and school readiness.”