Project Details
RIGFostering Early Literacy and Speech Development: Leveraging the Reach Out and Read Program for Early Diagnosis, Intervention, and School Readiness Project 2023
WellSpan Good Samaritan Hospital
The Reach Out and Read (ROR) Program is a national nonprofit organization that partners with health care providers to promote early literacy and school readiness through the distribution of developmentally appropriate books during pediatric visits.
Implemented in clinical practices across the United States, ROR has consistently demonstrated success in improving children’s language skills, cultivating a love for reading, and mitigating the impact of adverse childhood experiences. Importantly, it also serves as a valuable tool for early screening of developmental delays.
Community Collaboration
At the WellSpan Good Samaritan Hospital Family Medicine Residency Program, we serve an average of 351 children aged 0–24 months and 497 children aged 25–60 months across two family medicine clinic sites in Lebanon County, Pennsylvania—the second-fastest-growing county in the state. The city of Lebanon alone has a population of 25,747, with 22.7% of the county’s population under the age of 18.
Minority enrollment in The Lebanon School District stands at 80%, with 70.3% of students classified as economically disadvantaged. Against this backdrop, the ROR program has allowed us to provide free, language-appropriate books to children during well-child visits, strengthen the patient-provider relationship, and improve early identification of children who may benefit from early intervention services.
Putting Lifestyle Medicine to Work
To initiate the program, we delivered a structured educational session to resident physicians and faculty, highlighting the critical role of books in promoting early literacy and developmental screening. Most of the participating providers completed the ROR training modules as a prerequisite to implementation.
Designated book distribution areas were established at both clinic sites to ensure accessibility during well-child visits. To estimate the number of books needed, we used the Slicer/Dicer tool within the Epic electronic health record system to count the number of children under the age of six seen at both clinics between July 1 and November 23, 2024. This analysis identified a total of 722 children, helping us determine the initial book order quantity. We also designed a basic tracking mechanism to monitor book distribution rates.
Across both clinical sites, one rural and one urban, a total of 594 well-child visits were recorded during the reporting period, and 485 books were distributed—yielding a combined book delivery rate of 81.65%. While we narrowly missed our 90% distribution rate goal, our initial efforts brought us meaningfully close and laid the groundwork for future improvement.
Future plans for our project include improving tracking and consistency. We anticipate this will support more accurate data collection and reporting but also help us move closer to our goal of achieving over 90% book delivery compliance, further strengthening our commitment to early literacy and developmental support within the community.
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