The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) recommends reading and singing out loud to babies from birth, every day.
A press release says there is a new collaborative effort of Too Small to Fail, the American Academy of Pediatrics, Scholastic Inc. and Reach Out and Read to raise awareness among parents about early language development. The goal is to ensure that parents, doctors, and caregivers have the information and tools they need to promote early literacy and vocabulary development.
Reading with young children is a joyful way to build strong and healthy parent-child relationships, to foster early language skills and to promote children's development," said James M. Perrin, MD, FAAP, President of the AAP. "Yet, fewer than half of children younger than five years old are read to daily in our country. Pediatricians are taking a stand to spread the news more widely -- that early shared reading is both fun and rewarding. The benefits are so compelling, that encouraging reading at young children's check-ups has become an essential component of our care."
To help raise awareness:
- Too Small to Fail and the APP, an organization with 62,000 pediatricians, will inform parents and caregivers across their networks and media platforms.
- Scholastic has donated 500,000 new books through the Read Out and Read organization.
According to APP, researchers have found that by age four, children in poverty hear 30 million fewer words than their higher-income peers.
The collaboration announcement was made at the fourth annual Clinton Global Initiative America meeting.
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