DGMC opens "Reach Out and Read" program

  • Published
  • By 60th Medical Operation Squadron
  • 60th Medical Group
TRAVIS AIR FORCE BASE, Calif. --  Getting books from your doctor will soon be a routine part of well-child visits at David Grant USAF Medical Center. DGMC's doctors and nurses in the Pediatric and Family Practice clinics have welcomed the Reach Out and Read program to the practice. DGMC joins more than 2,200 programs nationally who are working to make books part of a healthy childhood. 

Reach Out and Read is a simple, yet highly effective concept that targets children who may not have adequate exposures to reading and books. It features three key elements: 

Volunteers read with children in pediatric clinic waiting areas,

Primary care physicians educate parents about the importance of reading with their children every day, and, 

Every child from the age of six months to five years receives a new book to take home and keep when they come in for a well-child check-up. 

"Giving a book to a young child, along with age-appropriate advice about sharing books for the parents, may be the only concrete activity a pediatrician can routinely do to promote child development," commented Dr. Barry Zuckerman, ROR co-founder, and chief of pediatrics at Boston University School of Medicine. 

Medical research supports this claim, showing that literacy promoting interventions by the physician have a significant effect on parental behaviors, beliefs and attitudes toward reading aloud. For more than a decade, studies have indicated that parents who get books and literacy counseling from their doctors and nurses are more likely to read to their young children, read to them more often and provide more books in the home. Additionally, several studies have also shown improvements in the language scores of young children receiving Reach Out and Read. 

DGMC is part of a large pilot initiative sponsored by the Department of Defense called Reach Out and Read in the Military providing books to Navy, Army and Air Force bases. Reach Out and Read in the Military will serve more than 90,000 children, or 25 percent of the children, up to five years old, of U.S. military families worldwide. 

Capt. Minh-Thu Le, medical director of the ROR initiative at DGMC, is enthusiastic about the program. 

"We in the military have a unique opportunity during this pilot initiative to offer our military children this wonderful program. This is a great way to have families be able to share quality time together reading books to their children, as longer deployments threaten to break families apart," said Captain Le. "Our hope is to not only provide early literacy to our children but to also build lasting bonds between children and their families through the joys of reading!" 

Each child who participates in ROR will have collected up to 10 books for their home library by the time they begin kindergarten, and their parents will understand the importance of reading. DGMC's pediatric clinic also has a literacy-rich waiting room, with child-sized furniture and books with occasional volunteer readers to model reading to parents and children. 

For more information about ROR or to become a volunteer reader, contact 2nd Lt. Alice Shepard, ROR coordinator for the Pediatric clinic at 423-5312.