The Book Sharing and Bedtime Project
Pediatric Primary Care Clinic At Hasbro Children's Hospital
The literacy level of American children and adults has
become a national concern. In 1993, the US Department of Education
reported that 90 million Americans lack adequate literacy skills and that
more than two-thirds of US children read below their grade level. Reading
failure disproportionately affects children from socially and economically
disadvantaged families and contributes to continuing the cycle of poverty.
A consensus statement from the National Institute of Education states that
reading aloud to children is the single most important activity parents
can do to build the knowledge needed to prepare children to succeed in
learning to read. Studies demonstrate a direct association between picture
book reading and expressive language. In addition, sharing books as part
of a regular bedtime ritual can help to calm children and prepare them for
falling asleep independently thereby possibly reducing bedtime struggles
and frequent night waking.
In October of 1994 the Book Sharing and Bedtime Project at
Hasbro Children's Hospital began as a combination service project
benefiting the children in our pediatric clinic and as a research project
evaluating the effects of pediatricians providing books to low income
children between the ages of 6 and 35 months as a part of Pediatric Well
Child Care.
Our pediatricians give a sturdy children's board book with
brightly colored pictures and simple language to every child at each well
child visit beginning at 6 months of age. Along with each book, parents
are given handouts describing why to share books with young children, what
children this age can do with a book, how a parent can enjoy books with
their child and why to share books as part of a regular bedtime routine.
Since the project began thousands of books have been distributed to our
very young patients.
In the summer of 1994, before instituting our Book Sharing
and Bedtime Project, we interviewed the parents of 51 children ages 12 to
38 months old who regularly attend our pediatric clinic. The Pediatric
Primary Care Clinics at Hasbro Children's Hospital serves families who are
primarily low income and from diverse cultural backgrounds. In this
initial "baseline" survey 8% of parents said that one of their
child's three favorite activities included books, 22% said that one of
their three favorite things to do with their child included sharing books,
20% said that they usually share books with their child as part of a
regular bedtime routine and 33% mentioned at least one of these three
child centered literacy orientation positive responses.
Ten months after the start of the project we interviewed
parents of children in this same age range who had received 2 books at
well child visits. After 100 follow up interviews 21% of parents told us
that one of their child's three favorite activities includes books, 42%
said that one of their three favorite things to do with their child
included books, 35% reported usually sharing books with their child at
bedtime and a total of 69% mentioned at least one of these three child
centered literacy orientation positive responses. This greater than two-fold increase in all areas of child-centered literacy orientation
mentioned in low income families of very young children in our clinic was
extremely gratifying to find.
Our program's need is primarily monetary funds for the
purchase of new children's books. In the past we have not been able to
benefit from the funding provided by the federal Reading Is Fundamental
grant because the children receiving books from our program were younger
than outlined in RIF guidelines. However, recently RIF lowered the
qualifying age to 2 years for children receiving books from the funding.
We are grateful for this but we must still find matching funds for the
grant in order to continue our project.
Also, read about the Read
to Me Program
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