B.C. Children’s Hospital and VPL work together to promote literacy
A library and a children’s hospital have an obvious shared goal of improving the lives of children, so it’s a natural fit for doctors to include in their prescriptions for parents to spend time reading books with their children.
The Vancouver Public Library has partnered with B.C. Children’s Hospital to promote books and literacy skills to parents of preschoolers, giving out copies of a book called The Reading Tree, written and published by librarians.
The book is part children’s storybook, part parents’ guide to foster a love of reading in children not yet old enough to read themselves.
“The Reading Tree is helping young children get used to reading before they’ve entered the school system,” said Christie Menzo, assistant manager of the Early Years department at VPL’s central branch.
“It helps them with vocabulary knowledge and understanding how stories work and recognizing letters,” she said. It’s done through parents reading and talking to their children and singing and rhyming with them.
“It’s setting up the foundation for reading later on,” said Menzo.
The book, which was illustrated by Dianna Bonder, shows animals that live in B.C. spending time under the reading tree to demonstrate different reading skills.
The library published 20,000 copies of the book this year and it’s available free to any family with children aged six months to three years old, said Menzo. Some 200 books were donated to a clinic at B.C. Children’s where resident pediatric doctors see patients.
The student doctors are encouraged to discuss literacy with parents when they are in the clinic.
It’s modelled after the Reach Out and Read early literacy program in the U.S., which found that reading to infants gives kids a leg up on others, said Dr. Mumtaz Virji, of the B.C. Children’s Resident Continuity Clinic.
“When parents read aloud to kids, connections are being made in the brain and they’re developing their language skills,” said Virji. She said Reach Out and Read research showed that with children who are read to from birth, “Their language skills at 24 months were much higher than those of children who aren’t read to.”
Virji said the studies found pupils with slow reading skills don’t catch up by Grade 3 and academically remain at a disadvantage.
She said not only does it help children’s cognitive abilities, “It’s good interaction between the parents and the child. “You’re cuddling with your children and they’re associating cuddling and closeness with their parents with reading. They develop language skills and they develop a love of reading.”
The Canadian Paediatric Society, through its Read, Speak and Sing initiative, says babies and tots benefit from being read, spoken or sang to from birth. Menzo said having parents hear that from a doctor, rather than a teacher or librarian, can be the push needed for them to read with their kids, even if they don’t think the child understands.
Kim Page took her daughter, Madison, 19 months, to VPL’s Let’s Sing literacy program recently, one
of the many library programs she likes to attend to instil in her daughter a love of reading and books.
“I’ve been reading to my daughter since the day I learned I was pregnant,” said Page. “I hope she’ll have a love of reading like I did when I was a girl. I’ve been collecting books for her to read and she’s got two bookshelves full to the top already.”
The Reading Tree is published in English, but the parents’ reading guides that offer them tips on how to encourage reading in their homes is available in several languages on the VPL website.