A Personal Journey to Reach Out & Read
By Trish Magee

Progress in any field occurs in steps, one after another, one building on the other. Each new insight builds and expands on earlier breakthroughs. This is certainly true in the field of literacy. If you were to ask ten educators who influenced their thinking, it is likely that you would come up with ten different lists. This is because each of us comes from a unique set of experiences and point of view, which insures that the voices that move, inspire and motivate us will vary. To know who has moved you is important, but of equal importance is to know why and how.

Here is my list.

Dorothy Butler

A New Zealander, Dorothy Butler wrote Babies Need Books. When I read this book in the late 1980s it helped me understand that to create a life-long reader, one must experience the sheer joy of being held snugly on a lap while helping to turn the pages of a book. It answered key questions like, how do we go about introducing books to children? Which books should we share? When should we begin?

Jim Trelease

In 1982, Jim Trelease, a sports writer for the Springfield Daily News in Springfield, Massachusetts wrote the Read-Aloud Handbook. One town over from where we were living, I met him at a book signing. This book became a best seller because it made so much sense. It set a goal of reading aloud to a child at least fifteen minutes a day by parents, grandparents, aunts, and uncles all across America and was a wonderful resource for helping parents choose appropriate read aloud books. It also subtly made the point that literacy required a partnership that spanned the divide between school and home.

Ernest Boyer, Commission on Reading, The National Institute of Education

In 1991, Ernest Boyer of the Carnegie Foundation produced a landmark paper called Ready To Learn. His research explored the creation of environments that would best support early learning. The role of the individual, the family, the community and society were flushed out. Structural institutions like community health clinics were envisioned for the first time as potential early learning sites for literacy and in Philadelphia, I had the opportunity to help create one of these innovative sites.

Barry Zuckerman, M.D, Robert Needlman, M.D. and Perri Klass, M.D.

While in Philadelphia at The Ready To Learn Program at Woman and Children’s Health Services, I read a paper by Dr. Robert Needlman. He had been working with Dr. Barry Zuckerman at Boston City Hospital. The research showed that parents were four times more likely to read aloud to their children, age 6 months to 5 years, if their pediatricians had advocated reading aloud as part of the well-child check-up. A prescription to read was not only a unique and effective concept, but validated what most educators had for many years appreciated, that literacy fundamentally impacts on human potential, health and self-esteem. Doctors Zuckerman and Needlman were soon after joined by Doctor Perri Klass and Reach Out and Read was born.

Vera B. Williams

Over the years with our four children, I have collected a wide range of books that were favorites of theirs and mine, and remain a source of comfort and enjoyment to all of us now as adults. With our first grandchild, Anabella, on the scene, I can see my children carrying on the reading behaviors I modeled for them many years ago. One book that we especially treasure is Vera B. Williams, A Chair For My Mother. Last year, Reach Out and Read of Greater New York had the privilege of hearing Vera speak at our annual fund raising event. Looking out on the audience of educators, doctors, and parents, young and old she said, “Remember, if it weren’t for adults reading books to children, our books would be silent.”#

Trish Magee is the Executive Director of Reach Out and Read of Greater New York. She is the author of Raising a Happy, Confident Successful Child, Adams Media.

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