Reach Out and Read: Prescribing Books and Reading for a Healthy Childhood
Young children whose homes have few if any books and whose parents rarely if ever read aloud to them tend to begin school already at a disadvantage, without the basic language skills they need to succeed. Reach Out and Read (ROR) tackles that problem by encouraging health care providers, who have early and regular contact with children and are trusted by parents, to make early childhood development and literacy promotion a standard part of pediatric primary care. At every well-child visit, doctors or nurses trained in early literacy development give children a new, developmentally-appropriate book that is theirs to keep, talk with parents about the importance of reading aloud, and offer tips about how to stimulate a child's interest in books and reading.
The Annie E. Casey Foundation’s support to ROR was relatively short-lived and modest, but it gave the program its critical first philanthropic backing and a base from which to begin rapid and extensive replication. This "bet" on an intriguing program and its co-founder came in the early 1990's, when the Foundation was focused on developing its systems reform agenda and the first major strategic initiatives. An early experiment in supporting promising innovations that fell outside this primary agenda, the grants to ROR have resulted in an extraordinary return on investment, making the case and setting a precedent for the informal innovation fund strand of grantmaking that would be adopted years later.
- Annually, more than 3 million children between the ages of six months and five years receive almost 5 million books.
- Participating parents are much more likely to read to their children, and ROR children show statistically significant improvements in preschool language scores.
- From its 1989 beginning as a single program, ROR has grown to more than 3,500 sites in hospitals, health centers and private medical practices throughout the United States. Over 47,000 physicians and nurses have been trained in ROR strategies, and 90% of pediatric residency programs now include ROR training. International programs modeled on ROR have been started in Italy, Israel, the Philippines, England, Bangladesh, Canada, and Lesotho.
- ROR has attracted extensive in-kind and financial support from the private/corporate sector, including major partnerships with many publishers, the Mellon Financial Corporation, the HealthCare Institute of New Jersey, Target, the Primrose School Franchising Company, and Sovereign Bank. In 2007, contributions to the ROR National Center and local programs from businesses, foundations, and individual donors totaled $15 million. The federal government also has been an important source of support, providing over $34 million in federal funding since 1999.
For more information, read the full Reach Out and Read Program Profile, which includes background on the program, why this was of interest to the Casey Foundation, and our return on investment.
Contact:
Reach Out and Read, Inc.
56 Roland Street, Suite 100D
Charlestown, MA 02129
617-455-0600
www.reachoutandread.org