Reach Out and Read Minnesota looking to expand outreach, improve literacy rates statewide
MINNEAPOLIS — For 15 years, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Nicholas Kristof has turned the traditional "holiday gift guide" into a philanthropic mission, highlighting organizations that champion health and education.
He's helped raise more than $1 million for the nonprofit Reach Out and Read.
For its Minnesota chapter, this additional funding comes at a crucial time.
According to the Minnesota Department of Education, only 46.5% of third graders in the state are reading proficiently.
At over 300 clinics across Minnesota, babies and young toddlers are getting more than a lollipop for going to the doctor.
They get free books on every well visit thanks to Reach Out and Read.
"The books that they're giving out at these visits might be the only books that these kids have in their home," said Kristen Hoplin, Executive Director of Reach Out and Read Minnesota.
"Literacy is absolutely a health care issue," said Dr. Gigi Chawla, Chief of Pediatrics at Children's Minnesota.
She believes so much in the program she also serves as its state medical director. Chawla says she and other doctors use the books to gauge a child's development.
"Seeing how kids can transfer objects from one hand to another. How they are opening up a book," said Chawla.
She says doctors are also studying the interaction between parent or caregiver and child.
"That's actually the most important part. We really want to make sure that parents recognize that that is how they can start that interaction with their child and cultivate that social and emotional intelligence," Chawla said.
"We know that kids that are read to early and have books in their home and are sharing books, they have higher language scores. Early on they go to school more ready to learn," Hoplin said.
Reach Out and Read Minnesota has a catalog of diverse books that physicians can select for their patients.
Chawla says they serve as both mirrors and windows.
"Kids and families should see themselves as the star of a book as the star of their own story and windows as it gives you a context of which to see a whole new world," Chawla said.
She says the program is changing lives.
"It gives people a context for making up their own stories, telling their own stories and it cuts across all races, all demographics," Chawla said.
Reach Out and Read Minnesota distributed close to 300,000 books across the state over the last school year.
Funds raised over the holidays will help them serve more of Greater Minnesota. Click here to learn more.