Reach Out and Read: Bolstering Literacy Rates Through Shared Reading
This summer, Robins Foundation’s new Administrative and Operations Coordinator, Annaliese Santana, helped launch the Foundation’s “Partner Spotlight” initiative. This initiative provides a platform for grantees to highlight their important work and for Robins Foundation to recognize the incredible efforts and successes of our partners. After a successful summer, the Foundation decided to continue this initiative on a monthly basis.
This month, Annaliese interviewed Melissa Rice, program manager at Reach Out and Read in Richmond. Reach Out and Read prioritizes shared reading, which occurs when a family member/educator and a child read aloud together. This organization additionally nurtures healthy partnerships between clinicians and families with children up to five years old, amongst several other initiatives.
Nationally, Reach Out and Read serves 4.4 million young children, and is on track to serve 10 million children by 2030. Their Richmond location serves about 17,000 children and families and partners with 150 clinicians in the area. As an early childhood advocate and former teacher, Melissa shared compelling insights on the importance of literacy promotion, positive relationships within the healthcare system, and bibliotherapy.
Can you describe, at a high level, what Reach Out and Read does?
Reach Out and Read is a preventative health intervention that supports overall healthy child development. Reach out and Read aims to strengthen all families with young children through partnerships with clinicians. These clinicians partner with families through pediatric well-child visits and help families develop nurturing relationships through shared reading.
Reach Out and Read is a critical tool for families and for our clinicians, supporting developmental surveillance and overall healthy development. The education and modeling provided by clinicians in the well-visit both empowers families and supports the overall goals of the well-child check up. Reach Out and Read well-visits are supported by a plethora of research and are even endorsed by the American Academy of Pediatrics.
Can you walk me through Reach out and Read’s model?
Reach out and Read’s model has three parts, which are implemented through the pediatric well-child visits for children up to five years old. First, clinicians provide families a new, high quality, developmentally and culturally appropriate book to read at home with their child. Then, clinicians give families a “prescription to read.” With this “prescription to read,” clinicians demonstrate how to embed shared reading into a family’s routine and provide anticipatory guidance about why these interactions are so important. The third part of our model is what we call the “literacy and resource rich environment,” which is where we act as a connector between clinics and the community. At Reach out and Read, families visit their medical homes frequently; so it’s important that we embed as many programs and resources that support children and families. Because of these frequent visits, each clinician deeply understands the families they serve and can connect them with resources they may need to advance their child’s development.
Why is it important for families to engage in “shared reading?”
Research shows that lifelong health is positively correlated with early developmental literacy skills. For young children, these literacy skills rely on emotional connections, serve and return dialogue, interactive exchanges, and positive early childhood experiences. It’s not just about reading, it’s about reaching out and sharing that reading. The magic really happens when a child and their caregiver snuggle up with a book. Shared reading is an opportunity for families to connect, gain attention skills, learn how to self-regulate their emotions, and nurture empathy and compassion.
How does reading to a child strengthen child-family relationships?
All early experiences shape a child’s brain development, mental health, and social-emotional development. Research demonstrates that Reach Out and Read supports all dimensions of development through bibliotherapy. Bibliotherapy centers on creating a nurturing environment with books, stories, and healthy relationships, which strengthens the mental health of both children and their families.
How have partnerships with local clinicians advanced your early childhood development initiatives?
Reach Out and Read works with medical providers, not through them, and has tremendous impact because of these partnerships. The Reach Out and Read model builds trust between caregivers and clinicians. Together, they can prioritize early relational health and emotional wellbeing for the whole family. This partnership allows clinicians to address factors that may be hindering parent-child attachment and strengthen positive bonds between caregivers and children. These clinicians don’t expect all families to have a lot of time to read to their children. They just ask families to set aside short periods of shared reading everyday that build upon each other. It’s these moments of laughter and playfulness that are the foundation for fundamental development as well as cognitive, social, and emotional wellbeing.
Due to historical patterns of discrimination within the healthcare field, many people may be distrusting of the healthcare system. So, it’s especially wonderful and crucial that Reach Out and Read fosters healthy relationships between clinicians and families with young children. Is there something you wish more people understood about the community you serve?
As an organization, relationships are a key part of our culture and value system. When we’re onboarding clinicians, we are transparent about the importance of healthy relationships and cultural sensitivity when practicing medicine. So, I strongly believe the providers who join Reach Out and Read have a very big heart and are working to address disparities and close those gaps.
As you mentioned, healthcare systems haven’t always had the most positive history. I believe resources like medical homes and well-child visits are critical for advancing early childhood development. Reach Out and Read is a public health approach and our clinicians use an early relational health lens, which allows us to strengthen these important relationships and improve the care of children. It is also important for us to look at social determinants in the healthcare system, because 80% of a person’s health is impacted by social drivers. I wish more people would recognize that these drivers are a really important piece of the puzzle and that medical homes are a crucial part of the Early Childhood system.
How has Reach Out and Read improved the lives of children in Richmond?
One big thing is that Reach out and Read builds home libraries. At every well-child visit, children are going home with a new book, but the impact is really much deeper than that. There’s been a lot of evidence that families go to their primary care provider for trusted advice and it is the anticipatory guidance, modeling, and support from Reach Out and Read that promotes language development and encourages caregivers to be more interactive with their young children. Overall, Reach Out and Read is really transformative. Our model buffers toxic stress and builds resilience within families, which is changing the way that families spend time together.
What motivates you to do this work?
I’ve always been fascinated with early childhood development and I find it very interesting how young children’s experiences shape their future. I was a teacher for several years and I was always surprised by the achievement gaps amongst little kids. At the time, I was impacting 18 kids a year, so it’s really neat to think of the thousands of children I’m impacting now.
Read Out and Read’s consistent and frequent support for families during those first five years of life is transformative. Through this support, caregivers begin to view their babies as future learners, which I think is really beautiful. Families learn to view themselves as their child’s first and most important teacher. Specifically, they learn to view themselves as the exact thing their children need. I just think it’s really cool to be a part of this exciting change in primary care.
Can you talk about how the support from the Robins Foundation has helped you all address needs within the community?
Robins Foundation has been critical in the development of Reach Out and Read in Richmond. My job was supported by the Robins Foundation and I’m incredibly grateful for that. In my role, I’ve been an implementation coach, which allows me to support the growth and quality implementation of Reach Out and Read programs in Richmond. I’ve been able to strengthen relationships with the clinicians and build bridges between the community and clinics, which has been really transformational for our region. Robins Foundation also helped strengthen additional Reach Out and Read locations in Richmond, so now we can reach even more families. Overall, I’m really grateful for Robins Foundation’s dedication to early childhood development and their support of Reach out and Read.
Is there anything Reach Out and Read would like to promote in this article?
Reach out and Read would like to share The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP)’s new policy, which doubles down on our mission. This new policy recommends that pediatricians encourage shared reading beginning at birth and continuing at least through kindergarten. This strategy has proven to effectively support parents/caregivers, enhance foundational relationships, promote positive language-rich interactions, and help families create a nurturing and stimulating home environment.
Reach Out and Read does more than expand children’s libraries; it takes a lot of effort to achieve the impact we have seen in our evidence. Our work is so important for children and families in the greater Richmond area. I believe a huge and exciting change in healthcare policy can codify Reach Out and Read as population-level delivery.
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To read about The American Academy of Pediatrics’s new policy, please visit “AAP policy: Literacy promotion vital part of primary care; funding is key” and “Literacy Promotion: An Essential Component of Primary Care Pediatric Practice: Policy Statement | Pediatrics | American Academy of Pediatrics”
To learn more about Reach Out and Read, please visit their website at www.reachoutandread.org
