Miami-Dade Family Learning Partnership is the Reach Out and Read Florida affiliate supporting 187 sites and over 150,000 children annually.
Reach Out and Read gives young children a foundation for success by incorporating books into pediatric care and encouraging families to read aloud together.
The evidence-based Reach Out and Read model of literacy promotion and family engagement consists of three key elements:
- Primary care providers (Doctors, NPs and PAs) are trained to deliver anticipatory literacy guidance to parents and caregivers of children from infancy through 5 years of age during each well-child visit. This age-appropriate guidance centers on the importance of elements such as: frequent and early exposure to language, looking at board books and naming pictures with infants, rhyme and repetition for gaining phonemic awareness during toddlerhood, and reading interactively (such as asking open-ended questions) when reading with preschoolers. Providers also use this opportunity to model reading aloud and introduce it as another way to support positive interactions between caregiver and child.
- During well-child visits for children ages 6 months through 5 years, the provider starts the visit by giving the child a new, developmentally appropriate book to take home, building a child’s collection of 8-10 new books before kindergarten.
- Reach Out and Read sites also create literacy-rich environments that may include gently used books for waiting room use or for siblings to take home. In some waiting rooms, Reach Out and Read volunteers model for parents the pleasures and techniques of reading aloud with very young children.
Reach Out and Read works directly with pediatric providers to share the lifelong benefits that result from families reading aloud to their children every day. We know that nurturing, language-rich interactions like reading aloud together give young children a foundation for success. As a result of this intervention at the doctor’s office, parents become more engaged and read to their children more often at home. Research shows that children served by Reach Out and Read score three to six months ahead of their non-Reach Out and Read peers on vocabulary tests. These early language skills help children succeed when they enter school.
Serving nearly 4.5 million children and their families across the nation, the Reach Out and Read program begins in infancy and continues through age five, with a special emphasis on children growing up in low-income communities.
In June 2014, the American Academy of Pediatrics declared literacy promotion to be an “essential component of pediatric care” for all children, referencing Reach Out and Read as an effective intervention to engage parents and prepare children to achieve their potential in school and beyond.
Reach Out and Read: The Evidence
Reach Out and Read: Resource for Families
