Reading together often with infants and young children strengthens their relationships with parents/caregivers at a critical time in child development, stimulating brain circuitry and early attachment. A positive parenting practice, shared reading helps build the foundation for healthy social-emotional, cognitive, language, and literacy development, setting the stage for school readiness and providing enduring benefits across the life course.
Pediatric physicians and advanced care providers have a unique opportunity to encourage parents/caregivers to establish routines and enjoy conversations around books and stories with their children beginning in infancy. Research has demonstrated that parents read and children learn when pediatricians offer literacy promotion as a practical and evidence-based primary prevention strategy in primary care practice to support early brain and child development. This supports families with a strengths-based approach, shaping a child’s life trajectory and helping mitigate stress and adverse experiences.
The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) recommends that pediatricians encourage shared reading beginning at birth and continuing at least through kindergarten as a strategy for supporting parents/caregivers, enhancing foundational relationships, promoting positive language-rich interactions, and helping families create a nurturing and stimulating home environment. The integration of literacy promotion into pediatric resident education is crucial to achieve that goal and thus is also essential. The AAP supports advocacy toward establishing public and private funding for diverse high-quality, developmentally appropriate children’s books in the languages preferred by the family to be provided at pediatric health supervision visits to all children, but especially to children living in underresourced communities. This statement is supported by multiple AAP policies and implementation resources, including the accompanying “Literacy Promotion: An Essential Component of Primary Care Pediatric Practice: Technical Report.”
Competing Interests
CONFLICT OF INTEREST DISCLOSURES: Dr Perri Klass has disclosed an uncompensated relationship with Reach Out and Read as a national medical director. Dr Anna Miller-Fitzwater has disclosed a financial relationship with Reach Out and Read as a principal investigator and an uncompensated relationship with Reach Out and Read as an advisory board member. Any other disclosures were reviewed and determined not relevant to the work related to the literacy promotion policy statement. Disclosures are reviewed and mitigated through a Conflict-of-Interest process that consists of reviewing pertinent information which is then used to decide what action is required to maintain content integrity. There may be instances where no action is necessary. This process has been approved by the AAP Board of Directors.
Comments
Literacy should be a top health goal in pediatrics
Here are my points:
1. Most physicians, like myself, have not recognized how critical Prevention of Poor Literacy really is. For example, I have been reading the AAP 2014 and also the current AAP "Literacy Promotion: by Perri Klass, et al. and the Council on Early Childhood". They surprisingly don't mention the impact of poor literacy on the rest of the community, i.e. '85% of kids in juvenile detention are poorly literate, (in other words most of the teen gang violence we see on the TV today are likely kids with poor literacy), 60-70% of prison inmates are poorly literate and mostly on the Police know this! I asked my local city and county police and their response was exactly the same, "Oh, Yeah, we know" (along with their right hands raised!! Makes you wonder if poor literacy rates went down if the crime will also go down?! The local Literacy specialists I have talked to all refer to the "poor literacy to prison Pipeline!"
The AAP articles I referred to, Absolutely should have that data in their write ups because it is so profound!
2. Most poor literacy is multigenerational and those families with poor literacy also include many of our highest risk families. These mothers and fathers often have low self esteem that contributes to a host of other problems!
3. The first 3 years is the ideal time to prevent poor literacy, with parents reading, story telling, viewing pictures and interacting with young kids. The Home Visitor (a trained mother of the same culture as the client), in my opinion, is a very important ingredient to literacy success. The current Reach out and Read office programs are fine but not enough, therefore the Home Visitor model. Check out my Cure Violence model in my write up. There they used Street Visitors (all trained black men and women and all ex-convicts) to reduce high murder rates in high risk neighborhoods. The people you use when working with at risk, impoverished parents can make a huge difference, in my opinion.
4. It has become astounding to me, to better understand how critical literacy success is to our families AND to our Communities. That is why Prevention of Poor Literacy should be at the top of the Pediatric Health List! I did not understand this in my active pediatric practice days, but when I viewed George Halverson's talk (see my reference attached) I was stunned and then realized that I should do more to promote this in my community. (I have a surprise story about this journey that I should tell verbally before writing it down, so call me later)
The AAP should think about making Literacy a Top Health Issue.
thanks
Mark Nupen, MD retired pediatrics
651-249-1013
[email protected]
920 Brisbin St
Anoka, MN 55303
2 Attachments
• Scanned by Gmail (I can send these 2 attachments separately if you cannot get them here