Governor Doyle Lauds Reach Out and Read at Children's Hospital

MADISON - Wisconsin Governor Jim Doyle and his wife, Jessica, took the occasion of their 44th wedding anniversary to join UW Hospital and Clinics President and CEO Donna Katen-Bahensky and pediatrician Dipesh Navsaria to announce a statewide expansion of the Reach Out and Read program.

The new initiative, named the Jim and Jessica Doyle Partnership, will use resources from American Family Children's Hospital and Milwaukee's Children's Hospital of Wisconsin to spread Reach Out and Read, a national childhood literacy program.

Reach Out and Read trains doctors and nurses to advise parents about the importance of reading aloud and to give books to children at pediatric checkups from six months through five years of age, with a special focus on children growing up in poverty.

The Jim and Jessica Doyle Partnership will be established as part of the Children's Health Alliance of Wisconsin and will coordinate the statewide Reach Out and Read program

"Dipesh, to you and all the pediatricians in the state who have been doing this great work for many years," Governor Doyle said, "and formed the basis for us to take Reach Out and Read to a whole new level, I thank you."

Video: Reach Out and Read Expansion

UW Health pediatrician Dipesh Navsaria, who has spearheaded Reach Out and Read at American Family Children's Hospital, says, "Reading is important to a child's cognitive, social and emotional health. I feel so strongly that children should have books at home and should be read to on a daily basis."

So strongly, in fact, that Dr. Navsaria writes "prescriptions" for books he gives away to his young patients to take home to keep after their appointments. This Reach Out and Read distribution takes place at the following American Family Children's Hospital clinics:

• 20 S. Park Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine Clinic
• East Towne Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine Clinic
• West Towne Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine Clinic
• University Station Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine Clinic