In September, Earl Martin Phalen assumed the position of Chief Executive Officer of Reach Out and Read. With more than 16 years of experience in nonprofit leadership, he is working to bring ROR to the next level of mission and service.

"Reach Out and Read is one of the finest organizations in the country," Phalen said. "Few nonprofits have the same evidence base (13 research studies), scale (3.8 million children... MORE

Last week, Reach Out and Read unveiled its brand-new national website. As you may know, the old ROR website was more than 10 years old, often difficult to navigate, and in dire need of a complete redesign.

The new website achieves some fundamental, but enormously important goals:

• Modernized look and feel. The website...MORE

As one of the nation's largest volunteer organizations, Reach Out and Read was proud to participate this Summer in United We Serve, President Obama's effort to encourage all Americans to volunteer in their communities. More than 2,000 ROR Programs nationwide offered volunteers the opportunity to read to children in their pediatrics waiting rooms or organize local book drives to benefit the children we serve...

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The Reach Out and Read National Center is pleased to announce the development of a new reference guide, Spanish Language Literacy Promotion for Pediatric Primary Care Providers. In its first edition, the guide is ROR's most comprehensive Spanish-language tool to date. Not a script, the guide contains Spanish words and phrases (and their English translation) that providers may find helpful in communicating early literacy guidance to their Spanish-speaking... MORE

A bill called the Prescribe a Book Act (S. 1345, H.R. 1526) has been introduced in the Congress to create a competitive grant program to support pediatric early literacy programs, based on the proven Reach Out and Read model, all across the country. The lead sponsors of the legislation are Senators Jack Reed (D-RI) and Charles Grassley (R-IA) in the Senate, and Congressmen Donald Payne (NJ-10) and Mark Souder (IN-03) in the House. As of November 30, we have 62...
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We would like to call your attention to the new Supplement published by PEDIATRICS (November 2009 / VOLUME 124 / ISSUE Supplement).

The material on "Health Literacy and Children" comes out of a Project Advisory Committee at the AAP, co-chaired by longtime ROR champions, Dr. Mary Ann Abrams and Dr. Benard P. Dreyer. They also led a conference on the issue, which generated the articles published in the...
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