[Congressional Record Volume 161, Number 12 (Monday, January 26, 2015)]
[Senate]
[Page S467]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

      By Mr. REED (for himself, Mr. Grassley, Ms. Stabenow, Mr. Markey, 
        and Ms. Warren):
  S. 251. A bill to aid and support pediatric involvement in reading 
and education; to the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and 
Pensions.
  Mr. REED. Mr. President, today I introduce with my colleague, Senator 
Grassley, the Prescribe a Book Act I thank Senators Markey, Stabenow, 
and Warren for joining us as original cosponsors of this bipartisan 
bill.
  Literacy skills are the foundation for success in school and in life. 
Developing and building these skills begins at home, with parents as 
the first teachers. Children who are read to frequently at home are 
more likely to become frequent readers themselves in later years. 
Indeed, according to Scholastic's Kids and Families Reading Report, 
among children ages 6-11, 60 percent of frequent readers, those who 
read 57 days per week for fun, were read to aloud by a parent 5-7 times 
per week before they entered kindergarten. This highlights the 
important role that parents play in building their children's literacy 
skills.
  To help support the parental role in literacy, the Prescribe a Book 
Act would create a federal pediatric early literacy grant initiative 
based on the long-standing, successful Reach Out and Read program. The 
program would award grants on a competitive basis to high-quality 
nonprofit entities to train doctors and nurses to discuss with parents 
the importance of reading aloud to their children and to give books to 
children at pediatric check-ups from 6 months to 5 years of age, with a 
priority for children from low-income families. It builds on the 
relationship between parents and medical providers and helps families 
and communities encourage early literacy skills so children enter 
school prepared for success in reading.
  I was pleased to see last year that the American Academy of 
Pediatrics, AAP, recognized the important role that pediatric providers 
play in enhancing children's literacy skills In a policy statement, AAP 
recommended that pediatric providers promote early literacy development 
for children from birth to at least kindergarten entry, including by 
counseling parents on the importance of reading to their children and 
through providing age-appropriate books to high-risk, low-income young 
children.
  Evidence shows that that the pediatric literacy model works. Research 
published in peer-reviewed, scientific journals has found that parents 
who have participated in the Reach out and Read program are 
significantly more likely to read to their children and include more 
children's books in their home, and that children served by the program 
show an increase of 4-8 points on vocabulary tests. I have seen up 
close the positive impact of this program on children and their 
families when visiting a number of Rhode Island's Reach Out and Read 
sites. Building on existing efforts, which in the past have been 
supported by Federal funding included in the appropriations process and 
distributed by the Department of Education, and matched by tens of 
millions of dollars from the private sector and State governments, the 
Prescribe a Book Act would establish a formal authorization modeled on 
this type of successful public-private partnership. By so doing, it 
would leverage Federal dollars to expand pediatric literacy initiatives 
so that more young children reap the developmental benefits of having 
books at home and being read to by their parents.
  I urge our colleagues to join us in cosponsoring the Prescribe a Book 
Act, and to work to include its provisions in the upcoming 
reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act.
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