"Grandma Carrie" Johnson, Lydia Witman, Dr Tara Berman, Gary Kaplan

On May 10th, Gary Kaplan (outgoing MLA-Phil Chair), Lydia Witman (incoming Chair), and Laura McNamara (Chair-elect 2012-2013) visited the Reach Out And Read (ROAR) site at the pediatrics practice of Dr Tara Berman, MD, FAAP, and her colleagues.

We gave Dr Berman the 26 books and $75 that MLA-Phil collected for this excellent early literacy program.

20 of the 26 books we donated

While there, we happened to meet “Grandma Carrie” Johnson, one of the faithful volunteers who regularly reads to children as they wait for their pediatric appointments. Thomas Jefferson University students in the “Jeff Reads” program also volunteer their time reading. We also saw parents reading to their children using the donated books, and while the children were adorable we thought perhaps it would be an invasion of privacy to snap their picture!

Dr Berman, who is a Clinical Assistant Professor in General Pediatrics at Jefferson, showed us where the books are stored and told us with contagious enthusiasm about the wonderful work ROAR does across the nation and in other countries as well, starting reading as early as possible in collaboration with pediatricians and parents. The ROAR program uses evidence-based practices to encourage discussion between the doctor and parents about how to begin reading with their children.

A recent innovation from ROAR is the creation of instruction sheets specifically about introducing reading to special needs children, such as those with hearing loss; these sheets include brief lists of suggested books. There are also new initiatives to include bi-lingual books from non-English languages, including not only Spanish but also Arabic and other languages. In some cases, even in families where English is the primary language, parents may themselves be uncomfortable with reading, so part of the ROAR program is to teach parents how to read to their children.

Dr Berman’s site has been participating in ROAR since 1999, which was the 10th year of ROAR’s existence. The site is part of a Philadelphia regional consortium, which raises funds locally, and also receives funding from its own efforts and from the national ROAR program. The Scholastic Books company also donates to ROAR.

A NOTE ABOUT ADDITIONAL DONATIONS
(per your request at the meeting for more info about this):

Dr Berman’s office always needs new (or gently used) children’s books for ages 0-5, or money toward the purchase of books. Donations can be dropped off any time during business hours at the Nemours Pediatrics office at 833 Chestnut St, Ste 300 (step out of the elevator, turn right, and go straight into the double glass doors ahead — there is a Reach Out And Read sticker on the door; the check-in desk in the rear of the waiting room is best as it is closest to the ROAR area of the waiting room).
There might also be a ROAR site closer to where you live or work — check out their website for details! Reach Out And Read is online at http://reachoutandread.org/ .

And lastly, although we wish we could say we planned this to coincide with National Children’s Book Week, we discovered that this week (May 7 – 13, 2012), is, in fact, Children’s Book Week (thanks Gary for the heads-up!). Read more online at http://www.bookweekonline.com/ .