COSAM Prepares continued
Reach Out and Read strives to promote literacy in pediatric healthcare
settings by providing positive role models that will read to children
while they are waiting in the lobby to see the doctor. COSAM students
are regular volunteers at Anglin’s practice, and they read out loud with
enthusiasm in the lobby to children.
Physicians and nurses provide parents with information about
literacy and how important it is to read with your child every day. For
example, studies indicate that children who are read to by their parents
have higher test scores and make significant gains in their language and
literacy skills. According to the Reach Out and Read website,
www.reachoutandread.org, more than one-third of American children
enter kindergarten without the basic language skills they will need to
learn to read. Those critical early literacy skills include recognizing the
letters of the alphabet, understanding that books move from left to right,
and being able to understand and tell stories. Furthermore, 88 percent of
first graders who are below grade level in reading will continue to read
below grade level in fourth grade. Reach Out and Read suggests solving
this problem by “immunizing” children against illiteracy in the critical
years before they enter school, when interventions can have the most
dramatic impact.
“Reading to your child is important for his or her development.
The parents don’t even have to read the exact words on the page. They
should shape the reading experience to the child’s attention span. An
18-month-old child might not have the attention span to make it
through the whole book, and that’s OK. The important thing is that
your child has a pleasurable experience with a book and experiences our
language as it is written in a spoken form,” Anglin said.
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Journey/2012
As part of the program, every child that comes in for a checkup at
Pediatric Associates and is under the age of 5 gets a new book to take
home. To start the program, Anglin first had to discover ways to pay
for the books, which cost an average of $1.50 each. Her passion for the
importance of reading to children led her to various civic organizations
that provided the initial funding. She also caught the attention of U.S.
Rep. Mike Rogers who volunteered his time at the office reading to
children. While he was there, Anglin was able to express to him the
importance of the program.
“Twenty percent of Chambers County is illiterate and I believe I can
help change that,” Anglin said. “The Auburn students who volunteer to
help are amazing. They dedicate their time, drive all the way to Valley,
and they really get into the stories. The kids do not want to leave the
lobby when they are reading. It’s amazing to watch a college student,
who I know from experience was probably just at home studying
vertebrate development, volunteer time to read to the kids. Any Auburn
student who volunteers to read is welcome to shadow me at the practice.
It is a good exchange.”
Many of the volunteer readers at Pediatric Associates are members
of Alpha Epsilon Delta. AED is a national honor society for students
preparing for careers in the health professions.
AED is yet another way COSAM prepares pre-health students for
medical school. The objective of the society is to encourage and recognize
excellence in pre-health scholarship; to stimulate an appreciation of the
importance of pre-health education in the study of medicine; to promote
cooperation and contacts between medical and pre-health students and
educators in developing an adequate program of pre-health education; to
bind together similarly interested students; and to use its knowledge for
the benefit of health organizations, charities, and the community.
“We have admissions deans speak to AED every fall semester from
medical schools, dental schools, optometry schools, physical therapy
schools and pharmacy schools. In the spring, we have panel discussions
of various local health providers. We invite our fo