Transcription of Doro Bush Koch for the show Books, Libraries and Health #166
Male: You’re listening to Love Maine Radio with Dr. Lisa Belisle recorded in the studio of Maine Magazine at 75 Market St., Portland, Maine. Dr. Lisa Belisle is a physician trained in family and preventative medicine, acupuncture and public health. She offers medical care and acupuncture at Brunswick Family Medicine. Read more about her integrative approach to wellness in Maine Magazine. Love Maine Radio is available for download free on iTunes. See the Love Maine Radio Facebook page or www.lovemaineradio.com for details. Now here are a few highlights from this week’s program.
Doro: Thirty million Americans still can’t read so our goal is 100% literacy for the nation. We have work to do. It’s an enormous problem but it’s a worthwhile endeavor and we’re excited about trying new things.
Becky: We do have results from last year’s programs. We were really pleased to see that on average, parents made gains of 2.3 grade levels in nine months which is huge. Our programs must be doing something right.
Steve: Public library is about people reaching their individual potential and for community reaching its potential.
Sam: When you’re at the public library, you’re around other people who are nourishing their souls and that is a fundamentally healthy endeavor.
Male: Love Maine Radio is made possible with the support of the following generous sponsors: Maine Magazine; Marci Booth of Booth Maine; Apothecary by Design; Mike LePage and Beth Franklin of RE/MAX Heritage; Tom Shepard Shepherd Financial; Harding Lee Smith of The Rooms and Bangor Savings Bank.
Dr. Lisa: This is Dr. Lisa Belisle and you are listening to Love Maine Radio show number 166, Books, Libraries and Health airing for the first time on Sunday, November 16, 2014. Early literacy is critical to health and wellness. Today we speak with Doro Bush Koch and Becky Dyer of the Barbara Bush Foundation for Family Literacy, a national organization founded by the former first lady of the United States that has been promoting reading for the past 25 years. We also discussed the impact of libraries on individual and community health with Dr. Sam Zager and Steve Podgajny, executive director of the Portland Public Library. Thank you for joining us.
As listeners of Love Maine Radio know, literacy is a big focus of mine. It has been for a long time as the medical advisor for Raising Readers which is a literacy program that gets books to children at their doctor’s offices here in the state of Maine. I spent quite a lot of time thinking about reading and the impact of reading on children and their families. The two people who join me today have spent a lot of time thinking about the very same thing. It’s really great to have these individuals to speak on the subject. I know they’re just as passionate about this as I am.
Our first guest is one that we have met before. This is my friend Becky Dyer who is the Director of Research and Program Development for the Barbara Bush Foundation for Family Literacy and our other guest is one I have just met but already have a great deal of respect for the work she’s done also for the Barbara Bush Foundation for Family Literacy. This is Doro Bush who is the co-chair. Thanks so much for coming in and having a conversation with us about family literacy.
Becky: Thank you for having us here.
Dr. Lisa: We had Liza McFadden come in also from the Barbara Bush Foundation for Family Literacy. She came in all the way from Florida.
Female: That’s right.
Dr. Lisa: Doro, you’re here all the way from?
Doro: Well I’m from Bethesda, Maryland and I’m fortunate enough to spend my summers here in Maine in Kenny Rockport.
Dr. Lisa: Because you happen to have a family connection.
Doro: Right, so my parents live on Walker’s Point. My father was the 41st president of the United States and then of course my mother is Barbara Bush and who is the driving force behind the Barbara Bush Foundation. I’m now the co-chair with my brother Jeb, who has a passion for education and literacy. My mom will tell you she stepped aside but she’s still involved and we’re happy about that.
Dr. Lisa: Why is literacy so important to your family? There are so many different things that you could have focused on.
Doro: I think my mom saw firsthand with one of my brothers, one of her children, who was dyslexic how difficult life can be if you can’t read. From that experience, she began to research and realized how important it is to have the skill of reading for life. If you can’t read, you can’t take care of your health. If you can’t read, you can’t fill out a job application. Twenty five years ago, she became passionate about literacy and has not stopped.
Dr. Lisa: What about your experience with dyslexia in your family. I mean if this was your brother, you obviously had a front row seat to the difficulties that he had when it came to school and living.
Doro: Right. Neil was amazing. He struggled. He read backwards. Something clicked and he began to overcompensate. He began to try very, very hard to get beyond it and it made him very motivated in life to do things well. He was able to get on with reading in his life and has been very successful ever since but I remember as a little boy, it was tough. In the classroom, he was … It was discouraging. He was getting bad grades, his self-esteem was very low and all of that. Mom saw that and she spent hours with him but things are good now and he’s passionate about literacy too. In fact, he runs our Houston initiative of the Barbara Bush Foundation for Family Literacy.
Dr. Lisa: Doro, you raised a good point and that is that the family and sometimes the mother, sometimes the father, sometimes another parental type influence has a lot to do with literacy, has a lot to do with helping kids read. Becky, is this something that you’ve spent time with as the Director of Research and Program Development for the foundation is encouraging families to really get involved in helping their children with reading?
Becky: Absolutely. We’re looking at new ways constantly to get families engaged because we know that children’s brains develop early and we need to reach them before they go to school. There are simple things that parents can do for example when you’re changing a diaper, you can sing to the child, you can talk to the child about what you’re doing. If you’re putting laundry in the washer, you can talk to them about whites and darks and just some simple things. It doesn’t have to be an extra activity, just part of your daily life, simple little things that you do as you build your child’s vocabulary. That’s what’s going to help that child learn to read.
Dr. Lisa: You’re talking about before they even start to sit down with the book, before they even go to kindergarten and start learning their letters, you’re talking about putting words out there and consonants and syllables so that children can start to hear these things and process them.
Becky: That’s what makes the brain connections so from the time they are born, you should be talking to them singing silly songs. You can dance around the room with them so they can feel the movement while you’re singing, just any simple little thing that involves language. Just keep talking to them even if you feel like an idiot because you’re talking to somebody who’s not responding, you need to still talk to them.
Dr. Lisa: Doro, your story really rings true for me because my brother had an auditory processing issue, so he could read fine but he wasn’t able to process what was going on around him well. This learning disability cost him no end of frustration. He would kind of focus in enough over the course of a school day to get what he needed to get done but he would come home and he would just explode. He would just be so … It would be so difficult. I remember all the time that my mom spent with him trying to help him find another way of dealing with the information that the school required. It’s a big deal. It’s a big thing that a parent needs to start doing if there are some sort of issue that comes up that is beyond the norm let’s say.
Doro: Yeah, and the thing about that is that if you’re the parent and you can’t read, you’re never going to break the cycle of illiteracy. I mean you can’t help your child. You won’t notice those things. That’s the whole mission of the Barbara Bush Foundation is to advocate and establish literacy in every home. That’s why we need the complete involvement of the family because nothing will happen. You’ll go home, the child will go home and the parent is watching television and so we need to get the entire family involved.
Becky: That’s a good point Doro that television does not replace the parent talking to the child. I’ve had parents who have said well I put my child in front of the television so they’re hearing vocabulary words. That’s very different from the parent engaging that child with vocabulary. When you’re right there talking to them, they can see your mouth move, they hear it. They can sense it if you’re doing, manipulating things with them. It’s very different than sitting someone in front of a flat screen and expecting them to gain language.
Doro: Right.
Dr. Lisa: There’s also an emotional thing that takes place if you are a child and you’re with someone that you care about and they’re suggesting that you read a book or even they’re just having a conversation with you. That’s going to have much more of an impact on your brain than you’re sitting in front of a television that has no interactive component and you have no emotional attachment to.
Doro: That’s right and I think everybody wants to be loved. If you can tie together the reading with cuddling up with your mom or your dad or your grandmother or your grandfather, your brother, your sister, there is that double whammy really of having that reading time together and then having that love connection with people that care about you. If you have love and you can read, imagine where you could go.
Dr. Lisa: I think it’s also interesting the way that you’re describing … I think that love is something, you’re absolutely right and I know that all of the happy memories I have of reading to my children, there is that … It was actually really good for me as well. I actually really miss now having kids … Two kids in college and an eighth grader, really miss that time with them, that bonding. I actually was thinking about when my daughter was a baby and having that ability to just hold this child close to your heart. I think that when you read to them, that creates memories all around.
Doro: I think that’s right. I think that’s right.
Dr. Lisa: What if you are a parent who doesn’t read, I think you alluded to this, that some parents don’t know how to read and they don’t feel comfortable and so it becomes an internal struggle for them.
Doro: I think and Becky can follow up but that’s what we do is to provide a wonderful programs that not only provide early learning for children but also we have the same programs teach the adults to read as well. Then the adults and parents come together in these programs and reinforce each other. We encourage people who can’t read and a lot of people are afraid to acknowledge the fact that they can’t read to go do the Barbara Bush foundation website and see what kind of programs can help because those are the kinds of programs we’re creating and funding. What do you think Becky?
Becky: I agree with you. We have five of those programs here in Maine. If you can’t read, pick up a book and turn the pages because your child is learning a simple literacy skill in how a book opens and how the pages turn. Point colors, it’s a red balloon, it’s a green ball, it’s a brown dog. They’re learning their colors. Point to shapes. That’s a star. That’s a circle. Those types of things are building literacy skills as well, something you can do very simply at home.
Even if you can’t read the words, you can still engage the child with the book and that’s very important but if you can’t read, you really need to seek help and we have great programs for the Barbara Bush Foundation. We also have a great system of literacy volunteers in this state. We have a pretty robust Adult Ed. program so I would encourage any parents who are struggling readers to seek help in any one of those locations.
Dr. Lisa: You’ve had some new initiatives, I believe, in the last few years with family literacy. Do you want to talk about those?
Doro: Sure. We’re really excited about our Teen Trendsetters program and we’ve brought 22 Teen Trendsetters programs here in 11 counties. These are programs where first graders are paired with high school students and they spend an hour each week together and they read. It’s a great program and we had a pilot program here. We’ve had a pilot program here already and recently, we had the opportunity to talk to an adorable first grader and her mentor and hear how really great this program is. It was very cute. Once these two were paired together and then the summertime came and they bumped into each other at the grocery store and the little girl came running up to her mentor and say, “How are you, how are you? I’m reading this. I’m doing that.” They created this incredible bond and it’s as beneficial for the first grader as it is for the mentor. The mentor was loving having this relationship. It’s a good program, great program.
Becky: It’s a great program. Actually the pilot in Windham, the first grader started on average in middle kindergarten with reading when they started first grade. At the end of the program, they ended at the end of first grade with their peers. A side benefit for the teen mentor other than earning community service credit was that they polished some of their own reading skills. We had several mentors come back and say oh I forgotten about pre-reading, I forgotten that I was supposed to do that and now I’m using that skill in my own homework and it’s helping me.
An additional benefit is that some of these young mentors have decided to go on to become teachers. As our educational workforce is graying out, we need some of those young people to choose education as a career so it has multiple benefits that way. The biggest benefit for us is obviously the first graders being able to read on grade level when they leave first grade because we know that they’re learning to read at that age.
Doro: They advance by doing this program. They advance a year.
Becky: In nine months.
Doro: In nine months which is pretty remarkable and a great achievement for the first grader as well as the high school mentor.
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Dr. Lisa: How do you help those people who are also, not just teachers, but how do you help all the people that are surrounding a child as he or she is developing to encourage literacy?
Becky: One of the biggest things we do here in Maine is we sponsor the Barbara Bush Literacy Connections Conference. This is our seventh or eighth year. I think it’s the seventh year. We’re holding it at Thomas College. This year, we’re going to a two-day conference. It will be April 1 and 2 and an example of what we’ve done last year, we had a keynote speaker from the Momentous Institute, which is a private school in Dallas, talked to us about social emotional behavior and its impact on literacy.
She was so well received that people said we want more. We’re bringing her back for the preconference. She’s doing a six-hour training with lots of hands on techniques for teachers, for librarians, for anybody who’s touching the child. We also have Nancy Stewart who is from Washington State and she’s a musician who’s played with several big names. When she had her children, she started looking at literacy and music and how they’re related so she says how many of you learned your ABC’s through the ABC song? Raise your hand. Now how many of you forgotten that ABC song, put your hands down? Everybody’s hand stays up.
She’s going to talk to us about the importance of music in literacy. The other person that we have scheduled right now is Laura Overdeck from Bedtime Math which is a nonprofit out of Virginia, I think. They have a whole process for teaching children Math by doing little simple Math problems at bedtime. Those are just some examples of some things that we have coming. We’re still building the conference out but this is our seventh year and we touch about 260 people at this conference.
Dr. Lisa: I think that is really great. This is something that is going to continue to evolve. Doro, you are saying we’d like to eradicate illiteracy and obviously that’s something that’s a good goal. Have you seen progress? The Barbara Bush Foundation has been around now for two decades?
Becky: Twenty five years.
Dr. Lisa: Twenty five?
Doro: Twenty five years and we have seen progress but as I mentioned before, 30 million Americans still can’t read. Our goal is 100% literacy for the nation so we have work to do. I think we’re excited to take the Barbara Bush Foundation into this new direction of trying all these new things. I just think it’s an enormous problem but it’s a worthwhile endeavor and we’re excited about trying new things.
Becky: We do have results from last year’s programs. We were really pleased to see that on average, parents made gains of 2.3 grade levels in nine months, which is huge. Our programs must be doing something right.
Dr. Lisa: I appreciate the work that you are continuing to do in the field of literacy certainly, not only as a doctor, but also as a mother and a member of the community. I see the importance of reading and of having a facility with language written, spoken and I really think that for me, it’s also fostering communication which is something that as human beings, we all benefit from trying to understand each other.
If we can understand somebody better by being able to read their story or by being able to see it on YouTube, understand their story, it’s really kind of a great and amazing time to be in the world. There are so many connections that are being made. I appreciate all the work you’ve been doing. Becky, tell me what website people should go to, to find out more about Barbara Bush Foundation for Family Literacy.
Becky: It’s www.barbarabush.org.
Dr. Lisa: Doro, thanks so much for coming in and please give my thanks to your mother, Barbara Bush for creating the foundation for family literacy and Becky thank you for being the director of research and program development for the foundation for family literacy. I encourage people to learn more about what’s going on in this field because it’s new and exciting and ever changing and really worthwhile.
Doro: Can I just add one thing? We’re a public charity so we rely on the generosity of people so we just want you to know that and hope that you can help.
Dr. Lisa: Anyone who’s looking to put their money in a good place, consider the Barbara Bush Foundation for Family Literacy. Go to the website and find out more. Thank you so much for being here.
Becky: Thank you Dr. Lisa.