Immunize your kids against illiteracy By Dr. Yvonne Funcke, M.D.
Reading aloud with our children used
to be a favorite American pastime, as beloved as baseball and apple pie. What’s happened? Reading to young children is the single most important early experience for later success (in learning to read in school), yet only 43 percent of Arizona parents report reading every day to their children. Nationally, fewer than half of young children in the United States are read to daily. And we wonder why we have fallen to 14th in reading in the World Education Ranking and our success is only rated “average” when accounting for our science ranking (17th) and our math ranking (25th). Literacy is a vital skill that forms the basis for academic success and upward mobility. In addition, low literacy and poor academic achievement have been correlated with poor health outcomes and numerous social and economic ills, such as teen pregnancy, increased rates of hospitalization, high school dropout, unemployment and crime. For parents and pediatricians alike, both dedicated to promoting the overall health and development of young children, this is cause for concern. Proficiency in reading by the end of third grade is a crucial marker in a child’s educational development. A stunning 68 percent of fourth-graders in public school were reading below proficient levels in 2011, according to a report of the Annie E. Casey Foundation. Also, a welldocumented achievement gap exists in literacy performance among different racial and ethnic groups in the U.S. Recent research suggests that the difference in literacy achievement between Latino children and non-Latino white children is even greater than that between black and white children, and that gap appears as early as four years of age. Latinos are the largest and youngest minority group in our
nation, and the Latino population increased 43 percent between the 2000 and 2012 Census. In Arizona, Hispanics now make up 30 percent of the state’s residents, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. One in five schoolchildren is Latino and one in four newborns is Latino. Never before in U.S. history has a minority ethnic group made up such a large percentage of the youngest Americans. How well public school systems respond to the Latino population surge will determine America’s economic prosperity and ability to compete globally decades from now, stressed Rep. Raul Grijalva (D-Ariz.) at a recent education conference. The future of these young Latinos is our future. What you may not know is that pediatricians across Arizona are playing a role in the literacy of our kids, and they’re doing so without a box to check for any reimbursement. For the 800-plus signed up as Reach Out and Read latinopm.com
¡ January 2013!
Latino Perspectives Magazine
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