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Welcoming Our Newest Program Sites
Outer Cape Health Services, Harwich
Vicky Smith, MD, Pediatric Practice, Pittsfiled
Palmer Medical Center, Palmer
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Sara Stewart is New Western Massachusetts Coordinator
We are delighted to welcome Sara Stewart as the new Western Massachusetts Regional Coordinator! Sara will fill the position held by Laurie Flynn, who is leaving to devote more time to her new communications firm, The Terrace Group. We are incredibly lucky to have Sara, a Pittsfield native with a wide background in child development and early literacy join out team. Sara's experience includes working as Program Director/Developmental Specialist at Community Health Programs First Steps Early Intervention Program, and most recently as a Literacy Specialist for Raising a Reader at Child Care of the Berkshires. Sara has a Master's from Wheelock College in Child and Family Studies. She lives in Dalton with her husband and two preschool-age sons. |
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Target Grant Applications Are Available
Deadline is NOON (EST) on April 30, 2014.
Last year around $500,000 in Target Grants was awarded to Reach Out and Read sites across the country. So even if you have applied and not gotten one, apply again.....and again.....We will cheer you on!
- Each grant is for $2,000.
- Clinics must apply to a Target store within 100 miles.
- Grants must be submitted on line.
- Check out the template and FAQs.
If you are stuck, Kate Wallace is the National Staff Development contact who can help. But read the templates first! | |
Hear Recent MicroLectures
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If you have missed any of our most recent 30-minute microlectures, they are now available on line. Recent titles include
Bilingual Development: What Every Provider Should Know, Erika Hoff, PhD.
Making the Most of the Book: The Book and the Baby
Cathy Wiley, MD
Making the Most of the Book: The Book and the Toddler
Amy Shriver, MD
Using the Book You Have
Natalie Golova, MD
For a full list, go to the Training tab of www.myror.org.
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Reach Out and Read New England
Massachusetts Newsletter
Serving 188,545 Massachusetts children
in 291 clinical locations
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Dear Reach Out and Read Colleagues,
It seems so simple: just read to young children.
In the well-researched Thirty Million Word Project, we learn that the foundation of language begins as a baby first hears words.
The number as well as the variety of words heard create the scaffolding of what will become the child's language. By age 4 many children, predominantly from low-income families, have heard 30 million fewer words than their classmates from middle- and upper-middle class homes.
We are still learning what the impact of tablets and e-books will be on reading, combined with all of the other types of screen time available to children. In the meantime, we know that holding a book, and sitting with a caring adult reading and looking at the book, is the most effective way to encourage a child's love of stories, of words, and of books.
We hope the take-home message is clear. Just read....and rhyme...and sing...and talk to young children!
Carole Ferguson , MS, PNP
Boston Area Regional Coordinator |
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Happy Birthday to Us!
Reach Out and Read is celebrating its 25th birthday in 2014. Our program has come a long way since 1989, when it began in a single exam room at what is now Boston Medical Center. We thank author/Illustrator Peter Reynolds for creating the custom illustrations that are re-launching our Book Buddy donor campaign.
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Lights, Camera, Action.......
On February 6, Sheryl WuDunn, a Pulitzer Prize winner and author, journalist and activist, visited Reach Out and Read at MGH-Chelsea along with a camera crew to film Reach Out and Read in action. The footage will be wrapped into an upcoming documentary about social service organizations that effect change. The documentary is being produced by WuDunn and her husband, columnist Nicholas Kristof of The New York Times, who are writing a book on the same topic.
It was thrilling to meet Sheryl and show her the impact of Reach Out and Read on families in Chelsea - and explain how we work throughout Massachusetts and the nation. Stay tuned for more updates on the release of the documentary and the book. We will keep you posted!
Special thanks to the incredible staff at MGH-Chelsea - Dr. Gabriella Muscolo, Dr. Ilse Rieger, and program coordinator Margo Johnson - for working to ensure a smooth and productive day of filming! Also, a special shout out to Rosa and her son, Calvin, who told their story to Sheryl and let the cameras into their lives.  Learn more about here. Last December, Kristof featured Reach Out and Read in his holiday giving op-ed in The New York Times, which netted us more than $200,000 in donations. |
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Kids Helping Kids
Three cheers for Girl Scout Troop 77025 in Winchester, a wonderful group of middle school girls who gathered gently used books with the help of troop leader Elli Goeke and assistant Susan Rozmanith. | | |
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 We are particularly grateful to the donors who contributed to our Winter Bridge the Gap campaign:
Andrew Degatano, Josh Adler, Gerald Gleich, Jane Robinson, Jeremy Rogoff, Ben Adler, Jennifer Kent,
and Kathryn Wakefield. And a special shout-out to graphic designer Laura Crossin, who created the remarkable graphics representing the loss of Thirty Million Words from a child's vocabulary. See more of Laura's images here. |
Massachusetts Medical Director Marilyn Augustyn MD Speaks to National Association of Nurse Practitioners
Reach Out and Read Massachusetts Medical Director Dr. Marilyn Augustyn spoke to an audience of over 100 Nurse Practitioners at the NAPNAP Conference in Boston on March 13.
She reviewed the basics of incorporating early literacy guidance into pediatric primary care, and ignited the interest of many NP's who approached Massachusetts Coordinator Carole Ferguson, PNP, afterwards about bringing Reach Out and Read to practices across the country.
Nurse Practitioners and Pediatric Nurse Practitioners make up a large proportion of providers implementing our progrm at Massachusetts Reach Out and Read practices, where 283 Nurse Practitioners practice at 123 program sites. |
Spotlight on Pediatrician:
Layers of Reading as Part of Pediatric Care
Jessica Roth, MD, of the Martha Eliot Community Health Center in Jamaica Plain, is a pediatrician whose mother was a children's librarian... and the two professions have mixed. Dr. Roth, who is an active participant in Reach Out and Read, has created several more layers of reading in her clinics: Reach Up and Read (elementary age and up); Reach Up and Grow (pregnant teens); and Reach Up and Care (elementary age titles for emotional issues).
No one leaves Martha Eliot without a book of some sort as her office shelves are piled to the ceiling with book donations she has gathered and sorted according to issues and needs.
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Gould and Acushnet Grants Support Healthy Lifestyles
 We are pleased to have been given a grant from the Gould Foundation to buy books for five of our clinical sites. The books will be great stories but ones that also talk about lifestyle themes such as food and activity. We are working with five sites: Mattapan Community Health Center, Codman Community Health Center, Uphams Corner Health Center, South Boston Community Health Center, and Martha Eliot Health Center. This pilot project gives the provider another tool to not only encourage reading but lightly discuss healthy food choices and being active as part of the regular anticipatory guidance. We especially appreciate Jessica Roth, MD at Martha Eliot, Suki Tepperberg, MD at Codman, Robyn Reisberg MD at South End, and Suzanne Rocklin, FNP at Mattapan for their specific input.
And, thanks to the generosity of the Acushnet Foundation, the same titles will be made available to our New Bedford area program sites, in collaboration with New Bedford's participation in the Mass in Motion program. The Greater New Bedford Community Health Center, Hawthorne Pediatrics, Horizon Pediatrics Pediatric Associates of New Bedford, Cove Pediatrics, and Children's Medical Services will receive copies of these titles as well as the associated reading tips. |
Thank You One and All......
We so appreciate all our supporters. Keeping clinics in books is no easy chore. There are many ways we are helped in keeping clinic waiting rooms full of gently-used books, and we appreciate all those who lend a hand.
When Philip Wood of Nailman Construction found himself working next door to a gone-out-of-business Building 19 in Weymouth this winter, he found the perfect opportunity to combine his commitment to recycling with an indoor winter job for his crew! Many phone calls later, Reach Out and Read Massachusetts found itself on the receiving end of Phil's resourcefulness when we were able to sort through the children's books and choose what might be appropriate for our providers and waiting rooms. Re-directing the enormous volume of material that remained in the cavernous space was no easy task, and we are grateful for Phil's persistence in finding the right recipient - Reach Out and Read!
Mary Jones of the Daughters of the American Revolution, Lexington chapter, continues to collect new and gently-used books and donates hundreds and hundreds at a time. They are whisked off to waiting rooms in clinics around the city.
Thanks to Sharon Massaglia of TJ Maxx Corporation in Marlboro for the recent book drive. Sharon and her colleagues collected new and gently used books that were distributed to Dr Ricardo Lewitus in nearby Northborough.
Nancy Dyer, Clinical Assistant on 9East at Children's Hospital
gathered new and gently-used books for Martha Eliot Health Center with great enthusiasm from the staff who donated; they were a welcome addition for this Children's Hospital satellite clinic. Nancy used to be a first grade teacher and literacy needs never left her radar.
Thanks to Wellesley Books for their continuing donations of books for children and adults at our practices. One of our clinics uses some of them for its own "lending library" where teens take a book and then return it for a new one. It's a major hit! 
And once again thanks to the Boston Parents Paper offices in Quincy that supported their local community through a donation of books to Manet Community Health Center. |
REACH OUT AND READ MASSACHUSETTS CONTACT INFORMATION
56 Roland Street, Suite 100D,
Boston, MA 02129-1243
Phone: 617.455.0636 Fax:617.455.0601
Alison Corning Clarke, MA, MSW - Massachusetts Program Director alison.clarke@reachoutandread.org
Carole Ferguson, PNP - Boston Area Coordinator carole.ferguson@reachoutandread.org
Sara Stewart, MA - Western MA Regional Coordinator sara.stewart@reachoutandread.org
Heather Robinson, MPH - Central MA Regional Coordinator heather.robinson@reachoutandread.org
Marilyn Augustyn MD - Massachusetts Medical Director marilyn.augustyn@reachoutandread.org
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