Prescription for kids: Read

Adrienne Pahl, M.D., is a pediatrician at the Appleseed offices in Morristown and Stowe. She learned about Reach Out and Read, a nonprofit organization of medical providers who promote early literacy and school readiness, while completing her medical residency at the University of Vermont.

The idea is to make books for kids and reading advice for parents part of every well-child visit.

“We gave books to every child under five during a checkup and I found it was a great way to promote reading and engage families,” Pahl said.

When she joined Appleseed Pediatrics, part of Community Health Services of Lamoille Valley, she found that, while Morrisville Family Health Care was in the reading program, Stowe Family Practice and Appleseed were not.

She worked to expand the program to be available to providers at all three practices. Barnes & Noble donated books for the project.

“Reading aloud to children is important because it promotes both language and social development,” Pahl said.

Studies show children who participate in Reach Out and Read are three to six months ahead of their peers in preschool when it comes to language development, according to Pahl.

It’s never too early to read to your child. Pahl and other participating Community Health Services physicians give out books at their little patients’ six-month checkups.

“The benefits are not necessarily reading every page of the book, but interacting with the child and the book together,” Pahl said. “Pointing out pictures and colors and talking about what is in the book.”

When physicians give a family a book, they talk about how important reading is for language and social development. If there’s time, they might even read the book aloud with the family.

Pahl recommends that parents read with their children every day.

The best way to increase a child’s interest in reading is to have books around the house, she said.

Books in the Reach Out and Read collection include: “Peek-A-Boo,” “Reach Reach Baby,” “Mary Had a Little Lamb,” “Happy Hen,” “We Can Do It!”, “Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush,” among many others.

Pahl’s favorite picture books include “Blueberries for Sal,” by Robert McCloskey, about a girl and her mother who go out to pick blueberries and a bear and her cub that go out to feast on blueberries on different sides of the same hill. She also likes “Miss Rumphius,” by Barbara Cooney, about a woman who scatters lupine seeds wherever she travels to make the world more beautiful.

Reach Out and Read is just one program used in Vermont to promote early literacy. Nonprofits throughout the state are working to get books in the hands of more children.

Lamoille Valley Building Bright Futures recently gave the Lamoille Family Center $1,000 to help support its annual book giveaway at the Morristown Independence Day parade.

“For the past several years, we’ve given away in the neighborhood of 900 books and we’ve always run out,” said Scott Johnson, the center’s executive director.

This year, the center has bought about 1,100 books, which should be enough to distribute throughout the parade route, which winds its way through Morrisville village to Peoples Academy, Johnson said.

During the parade, workers from the center hand out books they’re hauling in wagons; periodically, they restock with books stashed in car trunks along the route.

“Instead of throwing candy, we’re handing children books,” Johnson said.