Regional Director's Note

Quantum physics reminds us that our thoughts certainly can shape our reality. Political and spiritual activists affirm that our deeds count.  Yet, where in the working world do we witness people taking positive action - every single day?

 

I think I may know a few places. I've seen Reach Out and Read coordinators and child healthcare providers in clinics and practices across New Hampshire offer compassionate care - day in and day out. Focusing on one patient at a time, they know that to hand out a book and encourage parents to read aloud to their child is to positively affect the arc of that child's development, to be part of shaping a different educational future.

 

While Reach Out and Read may look different in every single Site, it works as well in Colebrook as it does in Keene. Through an interesting mix of styles, ingenuity, and group effort emerges a state coalition of 38 Programs that has at its root a dedication and openheartedness that indeed is transformational. Turning children and families on to books and reading does make a difference! Thank you for all you do.

 

And thank you to Dr. Suzanne Boulter who now serves as NH Medical Director for Reach Out and Read. With her support, Reach Out and Read hopes to reach even more of New Hampshire's most vulnerable children. Welcome, Dr. Boulter!

 

Gretchen Hunsberger

Program Director, New England Region

Medical Director's Note

 

As we send you this first Reach Out and Read newsletter, I'm privileged to be able to start in my role as Medical Director for Reach Out and Read NH. We are fortunate to now have a new online provider training for  our pediatricians, family physicians, and other child healthcare providers.

 

The 1.25 CME course is an excellent, self-guided training tool that incorporates several video vignettes of experienced primary care providers modeling Reach Out and Read best practices right in the exam room.  This material will be helpful both to new providers beginning to incorporate Reach Out and Read into their practices, and also to experienced providers  looking to find new ways to use books for developmental surveillance or to offer more cogent anticipatory guidance. Child healthcare providers can leverage these techniques to effectively change reading behaviors in the home and to help our most vulnerable children build their foundational literacy skills.

 

The new course is available at www.myror.org  and includes:

·  A review of evidence-based strategies to enhance development of language and other skills that  promote reading success.

·  Support for the importance of reading aloud and print-rich environments for the development of early literacy skills.

·  Recognition of the provider's ability to influence parents' attitudes and behaviors around reading aloud.

·  Strategies to evaluate and assess a child's developmental progress based on the child's interactions with a book.

·  Methods to combine early literacy promotion with other anticipatory guidance around development and language, stimulation and interaction, and using books to build daily routines and bedtime rituals.

 

A strong evidence base distinguishes Reach Out and Read from other early literacy interventions.  Fourteen peer-reviewed studies show that if the Reach Out and Read model is done with fidelity, we can increase the amount of time parents read to their children. Remarkably, our most vulnerable children will also make a six-month developmental gain in word recognition and vocabulary by age 3.  It is so important that the program model be fully implemented so we can ensure that our children receive these amazing benefits.

 

Each provider needs personal login information to access this training, so please contact our Regional Director at Gretchen.Hunsberger@reachoutandread.org if you need your personal password.

 

Sincere Regards,

Suzanne Boulter, MD

Medical Director, New Hampshire

  Progress Reports due March 31st! 

 

Please log in to www.myROR.org to submit your latest progress report! As you know, your Program will receive its automatic shipment of books (your "sustainability award") ONLY IF your report is filed on time. The report covers the time period July 1-December 31, 2010.

 

Information we need?  How many books you've distributed, how many well-child visits, amounts you've contributed to your Program or were donated to it, etc. Any questions, please contact Nora.Murphy@reachoutandread.org or 617-455-0657.

 

Across the country, Reach Out and  Read health care providers impact the school readiness of 3.9 million children. Yet, like many programs that serve children, Reach Out and Read is at risk of losing its federal funding.

 

On March 4th, Dr. Boulter and I -- along with over 100 Reach Out and Read state Program and Medical Directors -- recently attended Reach Out and Read's annual "Capitol Hill Day" to educate our newly elected NH legislators about the effectiveness of Reach Out and Read and to lobby for continued federal funding for our all our Programs. We were a force to be reckoned with!

 

Impressively, 300 meetings were held with members of congress and/or their staffers. Dr. Boulter and I met with staffers from both Senator Ayotte and Senator Shaheen's offices.  After those visits we set off to the House of Representatives where we met with the legislative staffers for Representatives Bass and Guinta.  (To read the article and interview with Dr. Boulter that appeared in the Laconia Citizen, please click here.) 

 

With our federal funding in jeopardy, our message that day was simple and direct: please advocate for the restoration of our federal funding by signing onto the Prescribe a Book Act (PABA), which would ensure a spot in the President's yearly budget.  Dr. Boulter relayed reading-related stories from the exam room and we encouraged the legislators to personally champion our cause, noting that crucial, cost-effective interventions in the first years of life help save resources later on, and children who enter school ready to learn do better in school, and in life! A full "dose" of Reach Out and Read is remakably less than $100 per child for the entire five years!

 

An enormous thank you goes to Sen. Shaheen, who signed on as a co-sponsor of PABA !  Our hope is that our remaining NH legislators will soon follow suit. You can help by calling your Congressman's Washington office to urge them to sign onto PABA, too. They need to hear from their constituents!

 

We also invited each legislator to visit a Reach Out and Read Program when next in NH on recess.  If you would like to host a legislative Site visit at your Program, please contact me at Gretchen.Hunsberger@reachoutandread.org!

 

 

At Dartmouth-Hitchcock

 

According to Tami-Lynne Chevalier, Coordinator of the new Reach Out and Read Program at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Manchester, they are fortunate to have freshmen Nursing students from nearby St. Anselm's College volunteer to read to children in their ample waiting room.  The college is big on service learning, and Reach Out and Read is a natural fit!

 

The volunteers turn off the TV in the waiting room when they arrive.  On a few occasions school-age children have not been so pleased, but the readers do a great job engaging them! "The goal that we set for the volunteers is to show families that reading aloud to children is beneficial and fun," said Tami-Lynne. "We hope having the visual for the parents, of their children eagerly being read to, will inspire them to continue the activity at home." Tami-Lynne's official role at the clinic is Family Support Specialist, so her work with Reach Out and Read fits in naturally, and well.

 

"We've had wonderful comments from parents about their child getting a book at the well visit. And, we've been able to provide Spanish books to those parents who only speak/read Spanish to their children. It's been so nice to see children leaving the clinic with a book in their little hands," she enthused.

 

In their first five months of the Program, providers gave out more than 2075 books at well visits.  "It is amazing to have that many books in the homes of so many children in the Greater Manchester area," says Chevalier. "What a gift we are providing.  The gift of a lifetime joy of books!"

 

At Child Health Services

 

Literacy-strengthening efforts don't end with the  Reach Out and Read Program at Child Health Services (CHS) in downtown Manchester. "We have a new family literacy project," says Susan Ouellett, Volunteer and Development Coordinator there.  "An Americorps*VISTA member was recruited this year to start it."

 

Every Tuesday, from 4-6 pm, families and volunteers descend upon CHS.  Parents with no, or very weak, English-speaking skills get ESL help; undereducated/underemployed parents receive  help with GED preparation, tutoring, or resumes; and their children get homework help, do crafts and games, and play. "We provide transportation for some and snacks for all!"  says Ouellett. "We also give away lots of used books and sometimes volunteers do read to the smaller kids, depending upon number of volunteers and what else is happening on a given afternoon." And as a special treat this Spring, children's book author, Kathy Brodsky, will attend on certain evenings to read aloud to the families! 

 

These two examples show what's possible with a little creative thinking! Perhaps it's all the encouragement you'll need to create literacy activities and volunteer opportunities at your  own Program's clinic or practice in support of the literacy needs of the families in your community? If so, do keep us posted!

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