“Reading aloud by parents is the single most critical factor in a child’s reading success later in life.”
– Journal of Pediatric Health Care
Reach Out and Read offers pediatricians a unique opportunity to encourage parents to read aloud to their young children, building language, literacy, and social-emotional skills that last a lifetime. Reach Out and Read (ROR) is a proven early childhood literacy program conducted during the nine well child examination visits between 6 months and 6 years of age. The program has three components:
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At each well child visit, the child is given an age and culturally appropriate book.
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The pediatric providers use the relationship they build with the child’s parent to encourage the parents to read aloud and often with their young child as well as to provide information on developmentally appropriate shared reading activities.
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Volunteers read to children in the waiting room modeling reading out loud to parents.