Transcription of Catherine Anderson, Raising Readers for the show Family Literacy #136
Lisa: I am very pleased to have in the studio with me today 3 women who are doing great work in the field of literacy which is 1 of my favorite topics. I have next to me Cassandra Grantham who is a program director for Child Health and Raising Readers at MaineHealth. She has a masters in health communication and also 2 children.
Kathryn Landon-Maloneis a pediatric nurse practitioner with over 30 years experience in pediatric health care. She’s most interested in providing healthcare for children that focuses on keeping kids healthy. She has been on the Raising Readers Book Selection Committee for 8 years and she currently practices at True North in Falmouth.
Kathryn Anderson is a parent who has benefited from Raising Readers and she’s also a language art teacher who’s been teaching for the last 15 years. She has 2 boys ages 9 and 6 and she like Kathryn Landon-Malonehas been on the book selection committed for Raising Readers.
Cassandra: It always sounds more impressive when somebody else is saying it back to you.
Lisa: It is impressive and it’s really important. I was the original medical director for Raising Readers so I know that it was really important when we started it and now, you’re how many years in?
Cassandra: Almost 15.
Lisa: Almost 15 years in. Everybody in the room here has children that have or grandchildren that have benefited from Raising Readers. Let’s first start with what is Raising Readers for people who do not know?
Cassandra: Sure. Raising Readers is a health and literacy program that works across the entire state of Maine providing books to children ages birth through 5 both at their birth right in the hospital, birth center or at home depending on where the child is born and through well child visits.
Providers actually hand out our books to parents and families and we counsel those families on reading to kids and the importance of early literacy and brain development and bonding and really just preparing kids for success in school and life.
Lisa: Kathryn … There are 2 Kathryns. It’ll get a little confusing but Kathryn Lyndon Malone, you have been a pediatric health practitioner for quite a long time and you’ve actually been giving these books out in your practice.
Kathryn: Since the very beginning of the program. Yeah.
Lisa: Tell me what your experience with this has been and why it’s been important to you?
Kathryn: There’s a whole lot of reasons. One is the kids coming they’re worried about those shots and people looking in their ears and things like that. It’s great to start a visit with, “I have this great book for you.” In my practice, I have lots of time with kids so I often read the books to the kids or show them and then talk about the books. To me, it’s like the kids have associated not just their well child checkups with those shots but also with something like a book.
It’s also a great opportunity to model for parents how you would read a book and spend that time with kids and I always ask kids, “What do you do at bedtime to get yourself ready for bed?” It’s rare if ever that I ever hear … if I don’t hear that they’re getting stories is the last thing at the end of the day and that gives me again another opportunity to talk about how wonderful it is to end the day with that nice coherent snuggly moment that fosters that attachment, bonding and stimulates brain development, so many good reasons.
Lisa: There are. There are lot of good reasons and what have you seen as a result of bringing kids into your practice exposing them to books over time?
Kathryn: One story that I was thinking about last night, about a year ago, I got an email from a family that now lives out in Colorado and the kiddo who now is like 7 or 8 was reading the book to the younger one that they got at a visit and so as she was reading, the dad emailed me and said, “She stopped right in the middle and she said to her brother, now you know we got this book from Dr. Malone? It’s really important that we know this book.” It was the 1 about the little boy who wanted a dog, a little dog blue and I think they got a dog out of the book actually. I think they convinced their dad.
Hearing stories like that is so delightful for us all to hear about what a great job we do in choosing those books and how much kids really love them and connect them with that checkup and to the provider in the practice.
Lisa: Kathryn Anderson, as a language arts teacher, what do you notice about children who have been exposed to books earlier versus children who have not?
Kathryn: Well, I enjoyed bringing this up at the book section committee last week is that the teachers in my school 2 years ago, we noticed that there was the collective fluency in the room. There’s a marked shift for me and I thought there’s someone different with this group of kids in my class, this 6th grade group. It wasn’t … I still have struggling readers and there’s also things that get in the way of a child being a successful reader but it was as if there’s a lightness and there was this sense of, “I’m a reader. I’m a reader.”
I couldn’t quite get it what is it that these kids, they’re not trodden down. They come in like, “I got books.” After a few weeks in, I realized there was this … the piece was these were all kids and not all of them lived in Maine all their lives but a majority of them had and I made that … connected those dots and said, “How many of you remember going to doctor and getting a …” All these hands up? “You did? What does she mean got a book at the doctor’s office?”
As we talk the other language arts teachers and through the building, it was that collective, “Ah, these kids, they see them in their homes. They know how to pick them up. They know how …” I mean all the basics that we think that a kid should have to open them up how you read a book, a story has a beginning or end. That’s comfort and competence comes from a much … in a much larger way and they have a shared literacy experience whether they know it or not as well.
I think it’s subtle and I couldn’t point to that as saying, this is different then but we feel it and I felt it ever since and the kids remember and they have a positive association which I just wanted to add 1 more piece around this. I was hearing Dr. Malone speaking, I’m thinking when I as a new mom go to the doctor’s office, I’m sure that if my son has an ear ache or there’s something wrong that the medicine that he’s going to give me or suggest or the procedure of the practice this 1 has been thought about and has been researched and he’s not just going to think, “Oh how about we try this?”
I feel like the books, I was thinking about this. The books have that same weight. If the doctor or the nurse practitioner gives me the book, it must be a really good 1 and I think as a parent especially as a new parent, you could go to any number of book stores and get really bog down and [inaudible 00:46:11] is this the right 1 and there’s that guess work has been taken out a little bit and now, I get to be on both sides as parent and on selection committee, I was connecting those dots and that’s really … we give this the doctor, she’ll know or the nurse will know and that’s helpful to me as a new mom.
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Lisa: Both of the Kathryn’s, both of you have been on the Book Selection Committee and I know that Cassi, you’re on the Book Selection Committee. You’re heading the charge. What do you look for in books that will go out to doctor’s offices?
Cassandra: It’s interesting because this was my first year on Book Selection Committee. I became the director of the Raising Readers program only about a little or less than a year ago and so, our staff of Raising Readers told me that I really needed to actually participate in the entire day of Book Selection.
We read over 80 books last week or the week before and we literally for … went from age 4 all the way down to the newborn books and we start that way because we get tired of reading 80 some books throughout the day. When we start, we’re really looking for, number 1, as a health communications expert, I really look at can a parent, any parent across the entire state, can they relate to the story? Can they … are they able to explain the story to the child? Are they able to read the words in the book? That’s very important to me that the literature’s accessible to a parent with very low levels of literacy and very high levels of literacy.
We look at, is it developmentally appropriate for the child. Will they be able to understand the story? Does it have … For the older kids, does it have a lesson? Does it have a moral? Does it have some sort of cohesive feel to it? Then, as you get younger, are the colors bright? Is it going to be engaging for the eye? Does it have flaps to lift and things to do in the book? Obviously, it has to be safe but we like to have some of those elements too.
I don’t know, Dr. Malone, if you’d like to talk a little bit about some of the developmental things that you’re looking for as a provider in the books because I think that was an interesting realization for me is that really, we rely on our … we have several providers in the room and they’re really looking at certain pieces of the developmental process for kids when they’re looking at the book.
Kathryn: When I read through 1 first, I read it for me. Do I like the story? Does it make sense? Then go back through and really look at the pieces. We had a book a few years ago that we liked except that none of the children riding fast down the hill had bicycle helmets on. We couldn’t give that out at a well child visit because we’re all about that. We’re also looking at how much ethnic diversity is in this book and are these things that kids in Maine can relate to?
Then, developmentally, is this appropriate for this age of child? Several years ago, it might have been the first year I was on the committee. You might remember, Kathryn, we put up some developmental characteristics of each age group and that really helped along with that’s now in the Raising Reader book on the back flap. This is how you might use this book with this age child. This is why we think it’s a developmentally appropriate.
Short little words in the beginning. I always love to show a 2-month-old baby the books because they have both pictures and words. It’s always interesting to watch the babies. Do they go to the picture first or do they go to the word first? There’s a real difference and be kind of fun to see what their SAT scores were down the road if they went to verbal word, the words first and the pictures or what part of the brain is lighting up.
Kathryn: There’s also the part about is the mom or the dad or the auntie going to pick up that book again and really, we think about that like does this … If this is the only book or this is 1 of 3 books in the house and the family’s moving a lot or the child’s moving back and forth between homes, does it have staying power and can I, “Oh look, the little mouse is …” We have these great conversations every year. “Oh, yeah, but the mouse keeps coming back.” There’s a whole other narrative. “Oh and then there’s this piece.” “Oh, I didn’t catch up the first time. Oh great.”
They’re going to come back for that part and how does this engage a sibling? Could an older sibling read this 1? Would it hold their attention? We’re really … We’re looking for the bang, for the buck with this book and knowing that some kids are going to have 4000 books in their house and some may have 4 and we want that book to lift to the top in either situation.
The conversations that we had over a year really … I always leave thinking, this mentioned the person next to me, “This really wouldn’t work because, yes, it would work because …” We had this really rich conversations and discussions about, “I don’t see that. Do you?” It must be really great for you all afterwards to synthesize all of our different perspectives in what we want to see in the books.
Kathryn: I also like to read through that back as a parent. I remember, sometimes, my children would pull a book off the shelf and wanted to be read and I’d be like, “Oh that 1 again?” I want there to be that lasting excitement that I still get a tear in the eye when I read 1 book or another or get excited about reading that because … and I want parents skipping pages like maybe I did a few times with mine a little.
Lisa: Cassie, how do people find out about Raising Readers?
Cassandra: We have a great website, raisingreaders.org and we can be easily found on Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest. We do all of those and as both Kathryn’s were mentioning a huge side piece of our work is to be able to recommend other books for topics or different discussions that parents want to have with their children and our Pinterest boards actually are full of different suggestions of every way shape and sort.
We’re dealing with death in our family right now and that’s a huge topic to be trying to discuss with the 3-year-old and trying to sort of figure that out and so I actually … I was actually on Amazon. This is the funny the other day and I’m searching. I thinking, “Why am I doing this? I should be using my own program.” I went to the Raising Reader site, did my search. I went to Pinterest and Pinterest does have a little bit more now because we’re able to keep that a little more up to date sometimes than the website.
I got 4 great choices and was able to order a couple o them and so I think those are a couple of ways that folks can connect with us. You can also connect through doctor’s office. I mean if you want to know if your doctor participates, just give them a call. Every single site essentially in Maine participates in our program so we’ve never had anybody drop out. We’ve only had people join and when offices merge or close or whatnot, we’re aware of that and we make sure to bring the new providers in however we can.
We also connect with midwifery programs and any other birth centers, standalone birth centers that are in the state but if for some reason when you deliver a child, if any of our listeners happen to be pregnant or trying to have children soon or adopting, you can actually receive Raising Readers books wherever you are. If you actually adopt a child, we connect with the local … most of the local adoption services but if for some reason, that doesn’t happen for you, you can always contact us through the Raising Reader’s website and we’d be happy to get you out a kit and/or if you deliver at home and for some reason your midwife doesn’t have a tote bag on hand, you can always let us know. We’re happy to send that out to families.
There’s a lot of ways to connect with us. We also have our emails obviously on our website and we’re happy to answer questions. We get them all the time from childcare providers and clinical providers themselves, et cetera. Please connect with us. We love to hear from families.
Lisa: Thank you all for coming in today. We’ve been speaking Cassandra Grantham, I call you Cassandra but [crosstalk 00:57:58] Cassie [crosstalk 00:58:01]. Kathryn Anderson and also Kathryn Lyndon-Malone. I appreciate you’re all participating and getting the words out literally the words out to the children of the State of Maine and thanks for the work that you’re doing with Raising Readers.
Cassandra: Thank you.
Kathryn: Thank you.
Kathryn: Thanks.
Lisa: You’ve been listening to the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour and Podcast, show number 136, Family Literacy. Our guests have included Liza McFadden, Becky Dyer, Kathryn Landon-Malone and Kathryn Anderson. For more information on our guests and extended interviews, visit [inaudible 00:58:33] @lisa.org.
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