Reach Out and Read-Alabama Launches Third-Annual Summer Campaign

Rickey Stokes

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Posted by: RStokes
Date: Jul 16 2012 4:55 PM

Reach Out and Read-Alabama Launches Third-Annual Summer Campaign

with Barnyard Dance

 

(Dothan, Alabama) – “Stomp your feet, clap your hands, who is ready for a Barnyard Dance?” Reach Out and Read-Alabama pediatric practices and clinics are ready to read together and make physical activity fun this summer with Sandra Boynton’s Barnyard Dance. Reach Out and Read-Alabama is launching its third-annual summer campaign targeted at encouraging families to read together.  Using the book as inspiration, the campaign is encouraging children to connect with dance and movement to exercise their bodies. Copies of the book will be distributed by the 700 pediatric healthcare providers statewide who will also be talking to parents about getting their kids outside and moving this summer.

 

A Barnyard Dance event will be held at Dothan Pediatric Clinic on Tuesday, July 17 (9am until 3pm).  Patients will be hands-on with barnyard animals at a petting zoo set-up in the clinic’s parking lot.  Apprentice dance teachers from Oz Dance Center in Dothan will dance with the children to promote the feel-good benefit of physical activity, music, and movement. Each child who attends the event will be given a new copy of the children’s book Barnyard Dance.

 

“Using the message of a book can help families get outside and initiate activities in their backyard that encourage a healthier lifestyle.  Having the support of partners like Books-A-Million, Inc. and the resources of We Can! (Ways to Enhance Children's Activity & Nutrition), a science-based, National Institutes of Health (NIH) movement that teaches parents, caregivers, kids and communities ways to eat healthier, increase physical activity and limit screen time, enables us to reach many more children and their families in our efforts to decrease childhood obesity,” said Polly McClure, statewide coordinator for Reach Out and Read-Alabama.

 

“Developmental experts tell us that parental interaction, especially in the form of talking and reading to young children, is the single most important aspect of a child’s neurological development. We know that reading to children at a young age has a profound impact on their language skills, which, in turn, enables them to become better readers, and ultimately, to start school ready to learn. It also helps strengthen both a life-long bond with parents, and a life-long love of reading,” said John McLendon, M.D., a pediatrician at Dothan Pediatric Clinic.  “Reach Out and Read is an evidence-based, national nonprofit organization that promotes early literacy and school readiness by giving new books to children at regular pediatric checkups and advice to parents about the importance of reading aloud. The model includes providing a carefully-selected, new, age-appropriate book for each child to take home from every checkup from 6 months through 5 years of age – the prescription to read can be as beneficial to a child’s overall good health as vaccinations or medicines.”

 

Research proves that families served by Reach Out and Read read together more often, and their children enter kindergarten with larger vocabularies, stronger language skills, and a six-month developmental edge. 

 

Nationwide, Reach Out and Read doctors and nurses serve 3.9 million children and their families annually at 4,688 pediatric practices, hospitals, clinics, and health centers in all 50 states, targeting those centers which serve children at socioeconomic risk.  The 70 Reach Out and Read Programs in Alabama serve a total of 129,000 infants, toddlers, and preschoolers annually.

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