By now, many of you have heard about the Reach Out and Read initiative, and hopefully several of you have had the chance to hear Dr. Dipesh Navsaria, Wisconsin’s Reach Out and Read’s medical director.  He gave rousing presentations at both WAPL last May and the recent Wisconsin Library Association Conference.

 Reach Out and Read helps address the gap between kids who are exposed to language-rich environments from a young age and those who aren’t–something that creates significant differences in their language development and later school success.  Since 90 percent of babies and toddlers get to well-child appointments (a higher proportion than make it to the library for storytime, or to organized, accredited daycare), Reach Out and Read capitalizes on the trust between doctors and parents by including early literacy tips, book distribution, and literacy-rich waiting rooms into every well-child appointment.

What an inspiring way to get the message out about the importance of reading, singing, talking, playing and writing with our young children!  And there is room for libraries to get a piece of the action, too.  Several clinics in the IFLS area already are participating in the program.  These are natural partners, folks!  And wouldn’t it be exciting for every single clinic in our area to provide a program like this??  There are things we can do to encourage participation. 

I’m working on a way to help librarians build coalitions with other agencies to get involved in this early literacy initiative.  Watch for an invitation to get involved, and if you have ideas or you just can’t wait, please contact me at langby @ ifls.lib.wi.us.  At the state level, our wonderful consultant Tessa Michaelson Schmidt is working on a resource for librarians, parents and caregivers called Growing Wisconsin Readers–look for more information about this soon-to-be-developed website!

And there’s more!  Look for a storytime workshop extravaganza coming up in 2013.  We have so much talent and experience right here in IFLS-land, we’ll be tapping into that, along with the new Every Child Ready to Read training, to provide a bang-up, inspiring workshop.  Watch for details, and contact me with suggestions or ideas you want to be sure we include!