PROVIDENCE, RI – Today, U.S. Senator Jack Reed joined health professionals and childhood literacy advocates from Reach Out and Read RI at the Chafee Health Center in Providence to celebrate President Obama signing Reed’s Prescribe a Book Act into law.  Reed’s legislation creates federal grant opportunities for pediatric early literacy initiatives, authorizing competitive funding that could be used to help doctors and nurses provide low-income parents with a children’s book to take home at every wellness visit.  This marks the first time a pediatric early literacy promotion initiative has been written into federal education policy.

The legislation authorizes funding for literacy programs that target at-risk children.  This law builds upon the success of Reach Out and Read, an evidence-based organization that addresses the importance of reaching children in the first years of life by incorporating literacy promotion into pediatric care.  Coupled with the measures the Senator added into the ESSA to support school libraries along with other literacy provisions, the new law contains an enhanced focus on helping young people read. 

“Literacy is the foundation for learning.  Developing and building these skills begins at home, with parents as the first teachers.  That is the basis for the Prescribe a Book Act, and its inclusion in the Every Student Succeeds Act is an important step forward.  Helping young people learn to read is one of the most important things in terms of setting them along the right path and helping them develop the skills they’ll need to be successful.  This initiative empowers parents to help their kids and provides them with free books to get started,” said Senator Reed, the author of the bipartisan Prescribe a Book Act, which was cosponsored by Senator Chuck Grassley (R-IA).

There are 250 medical providers participating in Rhode Island’s Reach Out and Read program, which serves over 31,000 children annually and distributed more than 57,000 books last year.  Senator Reed visited the participating Providence Community Health Center at Chafee on Friday to cheer the passage of his legislation.

“Senator Reed has been a champion of early literacy for more than 15 years. He has known all along what others are only discovering now—the earlier you read with your children, the greater their chances for success in school and beyond,” said Susanna Beckwith, executive director of Reach Out and Read RI. “Senator Reed is a tireless advocate for our youngest citizens and the programs that support them, like Reach Out and Read.  I’m so pleased to be here today to celebrate the passage of this groundbreaking legislation.”

“Research shows that reading aloud to children from an early age is vitally important to their development.  Programs that get books in the hands of parents and young children have a tremendous impact on kids who are in danger of falling behind, even before they reach school age,” Senator Grassley said.  “These programs may be the difference in a child’s entering school at an equal level as his or her classmates or starting behind from the beginning.”

The Prescribe a Book Act will provide competitively-awarded grants to help more health care providers offer carefully-selected, new, age-appropriate books for children to take home from every checkup from 6 months through 5 years.

The American Academy of Pediatrics has recognized the important role that pediatric providers play in enhancing children’s literacy skills.  Research published in peer-reviewed, scientific journals has found that parents who have participated in the Reach Out and Read program are significantly more likely to read to their children and include more children’s books in their home, and that children served by the program show an increase of 4-8 points on vocabulary tests.  These effects have been found in ethnically and economically diverse families nationwide, according to Reach Out and Read.

Results from a recent Scholastic survey underscored the need for this type of initiative.  Only 30 percent of parents reported reading aloud to their children before the age of three months and just under half of the parents from the lowest income households reported receiving advice on reading to their children starting at birth compared to nearly three-quarters of the highest income households.

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