Rep. Susan Davis with youths at the Logan Heights Family Health Center in San Diego.
Logan Heights–Pediatricians and nurses at Logan Heights Family Health Center are sending families home from checkups with free books and a very important prescription – “read aloud to your children.” Today, Representative Davis visited the health center, not only to cheer them on, but to practice what doctors preach by reading to a group of young patients.
Logan Heights Family Health Center participates in Reach Out and Read, a program that prepares America’s youngest children to succeed in school by partnering with doctors to prescribe books and encourage families to read together.
Doctors, nurse practitioners, and other medical professionals incorporate Reach Out and Read’s evidence-based model into regular pediatric checkups, by advising parents about the importance of reading aloud and giving developmentally-appropriate books to children.
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. The program begins at the 6-month checkup and continues through age 5, with a special emphasis on children growing up in low-income communities.
The program has gained broad bipartisan support in the United States Congress.
Family Health Centers of San Diego is a non-profit community health center organization whose mission is to provide caring, affordable, high quality healthcare and supportive services to everyone, with a special commitment to uninsured, low income and medically underserved persons. As the largest provider of safety net healthcare in the region, Family Health Centers of San Diego cared for more than 160,000 individuals in 2010 through over 598,000 individual patient visits.
Congresswoman Susan Davis supports the literacy efforts of Reach Out and Read. “When my boys were young, I began reading to them at a very early age. Today, I take great joy in sharing stories with my grandchildren. As a former member of the San Diego School Board, I know that literacy is fundamental to every child’s education.”
Logan Heights Family Health Center is one of 15 Programs in Representative Davis’ district that participate in Reach Out and Read, providing books to more than 16,000 children annually. Reach Out and Read serves children at 54 locations across San Diego County, reaching more than 75,000 infants, toddlers and preschoolers each year. Reach Out and Read in San Diego is a program of the local chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics- AAP-CA3.
Families served by Reach Out and Read read together more often, and their children enter kindergarten with larger vocabularies and stronger language skills, better prepared to achieve their potential.
“Research shows that if you intervene in the first five years of life and partner with parents, you can dramatically improve the early literacy skills of a child, putting them on the track for success in school and in life,” said Reach Out and Read Chief Executive Officer Earl Martin Phalen. “Childhood development experts tell us that the most important thing that parents can do to prepare their children to succeed in school is to read aloud to them every day. “
The Reach Out and Read model is endorsed by the American Academy of Pediatrics, and the program has one of the strongest records of research support of any primary care intervention.
Reach Out and Read doctors and nurses distribute 6.4 million books to more than 3.9 million children and their families annually at 4,688 pediatric practices, hospitals, clinics and health centers in all 50 states.
More than 28,000 medical providers nationwide currently participate in Reach Out and Read.
