How do we create literacy rich waiting rooms and recruit volunteers?
Reach Out and Read recognizes that children and parents often spend a fair amount of time in the waiting room. To take advantage of this time, the Reach Out and Read model recommends using the waiting room to promote the joy of reading aloud and to provide information for parents about how to read to their young children. In many Reach Out and Read waiting rooms: – Volunteers provide children with positive reading experiences and help parents understand that a picture or storybook is an easy, portable way to keep a young child engaged in almost any situation. – Volunteers model read-aloud techniques that show parents by example that reading with children is a vigorous, enjoyable process. Not all clinics have waiting rooms or wait times suitable for volunteer reader programs. However, all Reach Out and Read Programs can develop a waiting room component of the Program. For example, Reach Out and Read Programs can: – Ask volunteers to collect gently-used books, sort them, and put them out
