Philadelphia hospitals expand early literacy efforts to combat book deserts

St. Christopher’s Hospital for Children and CHOP in Philadelphia are ramping up their Reach Out and Read programme to address literacy gaps in North Philadelphia, distributing millions of books to foster early language development amid community challenges.

At St. Christopher’s Hospital for Children in North Philadelphia, Daniel Taylor opened a book during a routine visit and used the reading session to gauge a child’s language development as much as to entertain her. The patient, 5-year-old Xylo Williams, completed a rhyme before Taylor finished the line, prompting him to praise her phonetic awareness. Her siblings also left with age-appropriate books, part of a long-running effort to make reading a normal part of paediatric care.

That effort is Reach Out and Read, a national programme that has become deeply embedded at both St. Christopher’s and the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. CHOP says the initiative began there in 1996, while St. Christopher’s launched its local programme in 2001. In both places, clinicians model reading aloud for parents and hand out books during well visits, with the aim of building home libraries and encouraging families to read together from infancy through the early school years.

Taylor, who helps oversee the programme at St. Christopher’s Centre for the Urban Child, said North Philadelphia is effectively a “book desert”, where many families have little easy access to children’s books and may not feel comfortable or safe using local libraries. The centre, which blends medical care with social services, sees about 48,000 children a year, and Taylor described the book programme as a way of addressing literacy gaps alongside other social needs.

The case for the intervention is rooted in early childhood development. Trude Haecker, one of the founders of CHOP’s Reach Out and Read programme, said parents who receive a book at a well visit are far more likely to read to their children, and that shared reading helps build vocabulary and language skills during the first years of life. Taylor said an estimated 46% of children in the Philadelphia school district are not ready for kindergarten, and he sees the programme as one way to improve later reading achievement by strengthening language skills much earlier.

The scale has grown steadily. CHOP says its Reach Out and Read work now operates in 10 of its 30 primary care practices in Pennsylvania and New Jersey, serving children from 6 months to 5 years old, and it presented its one-millionth book in 2016. Taylor said St. Christopher’s has handed out nearly 1 million books since 2001, in English and about a dozen other languages, and raised more than $120,000 last year through its annual basketball tournament fundraiser. In July, Reach Out and Read launched a Pennsylvania affiliate to expand the model statewide, building on the existing network that already reaches hundreds of paediatric practices in the region.