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Supplying free, age-appropriate books at well-child visits with Doctor’s advice: “Read to your Child”
Richard Strauss, MD
| In 2004, the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction found that 26% of Wisconsin 10th graders statewide could not read at a standard 10th grade level. In fact, they were far below the expected performance.
Richard Strauss, MD, a Gundersen Lutheran Pediatrician for 17 years, became aware of the national Reach Out and Read (ROR) program at a national pediatric meeting in 1997. He reasoned that pediatricians should be interested in children’s mental and intellectual health as well as their physical well being. Consequently, the reading program fit well into his professional mantra. He returned home to Gundersen Lutheran to become an advocate for and to start the first local clinic of Reach Out and Read in Wisconsin.
The national ROR program has grown spectacularly since its beginning, adding 250 to 300 new clinics every year and now totaling 2,482 programs in all 50 states. Funding for administration and buying new books (3.4 million books in 2005) has come from private-sector donations ($17 million in 2005), and from the U.S. Department of Education ($10 million in 2005). Wisconsin’s Rep. Ron Kind has been a major supporter of this program in the U.S. Congress.
The basics of the program at Gundersen Lutheran are the same as those nationwide. Medical practitioners are trained to give free books at children’s check-ups from six months through five years, distributing a total of seven age-appropriate books. This is a small starting “library” for the child. Along with the books, the practitioner advises parents to read to their children on a regular basis (a prescription for reading). In this way, parents both encourage and serve as role models for their children’s reading futures.
ROR has strong research support. For more than a decade, studies have shown that parents who get books and literacy counseling from their doctors and nurses are more likely to read to their young children, to read to them more often, and to provide more books in the home.
Gundersen Lutheran Medical Foundation, a firm believer in the program, has donated $60,000 for ROR over the past four years. |