We envision a world where all parents have daily, meaningful, language-rich interactions with their children. To realize this ambition, Reach Out and Read inland Empire will maximize the potential of pediatric primary care to promote the positive interactions that foster healthy development during the critical early years of a child’s life.
Reach Out and Read
What Is Reach Out And Read?
Reach Out and Read Inland Empire gives young children in Riverside and San Bernardino County a foundation for success by incorporating books into pediatric care and encouraging families to read aloud together.
Our Progress
61,968 | Books distributed (Inland Empire) |
35,410 | Children served (Inland Empire) |
Our Mission
Our Vision
Reach Out and Read Inland Empire gives young children a foundation for success by incorporating books into pediatric care and encouraging families to read aloud together. Resources are available in English and Spanish.
Family and Provider Resources
Help Me Grow Inland Empire
ACE's Aware
Help Me Grow Inland Empire provides free developmental screenings and risk screenings for families with young children. Help Me Grow also provides free referrals to community services and early intervention services, and helps families navigate these services. Families and providers can visit the Help Me Grow website or call the Access Center at 1-888-HMGIE-16 for information and support.
ACEs Aware is an initiative led by the Office of the California Surgeon General and the Department of Health Care Services to give Medi-Cal providers training, clinical protocols, and payment for screening children and adults for ACEs.
Resources for Families
Reach Out and Read is here for you so that you can be there for them. We understand the difficulties of parenting especially during the current climate of the world. Young children are very observant, and you may be struggling to address difficult conversations with them. It is during these times of anxiety when children are most in need of a secure environment and opportunities for one-on-one engagement with a loved one.
Become A Provider
The Reach Out and Read model of literacy promotion and family engagement consists of three key elements:
Primary care providers (Doctors, NPs and PAs) are trained to deliver anticipatory literacy guidance to parents and caregivers of children from birth through 5 years of age during each well-child visit. This age-appropriate guidance centers on the importance of elements such as: frequent and early exposure to language, looking at board books and naming pictures with infants, rhyme and repetition for gaining phonemic awareness during toddlerhood, and reading interactively (such as asking open-ended questions) when reading with preschoolers. Providers also use this opportunity to model reading aloud and introduce it as another way to support positive interactions between caregiver and child.
During well-child visits for children ages 6 months through 5 years, the provider starts the visit by giving the child a new, developmentally appropriate book to take home, building a child’s collection of 8-10 new books before kindergarten.
Reach Out and Read sites also create literacy-rich environments that may include gently used books for waiting room use or for siblings to take home. In some waiting rooms, Reach Out and Read volunteers model for parents the pleasures and techniques of reading aloud with very young children.
