Chelsea Phelps is a Pediatric Nurse Practitioner and ROR-KC Medical Director for Swope Health Central. The clinic is part of a conglomerate of Swope Health Services satellite sites that offer a variety of services including, primary care, dentistry, optometry, radiology, pharmacy, WIC and an on-site laboratory. Chelsea and her colleagues at Swope Health Central utilized a new book during 2,000 well child visits last year and had the opportunity to educate hundreds of families about the importance of reading from the start.
Chelsea shared a bit about herself and how she makes a difference to improve literacy in Kansas City every day. She has been a passionate supporter of Reach Out and Read Kansas City from the moment she started at Swope in 2015, and she understands the impact early reading can have on a child’s life.
What is your favorite part of ROR-KC?
My favorite part about Reach Out and Read is every time I give a book to a family and the sheer excitement I see on their faces. If I forget to bring in the book at the beginning of the appointment many of my families will ask me if they are getting a book that day.
What are some of your favorite books to use with your patients and why?
I love books with touch and feel details, the indestructible books, or books with flaps. My infants love to feel the different textures of the books, chewing on them or looking for hidden characters under the flaps. For my older kids, they love receiving books with recognizable characters on them or things they are interested in (planes, trains, dolls, etc)
What’s your favorite piece of family reading advice (or encouragement) to share?
Reading to your children at LEAST once per day is so beneficial to their development. Many parents feel that for a child to learn, you need to sit them down and teach them as though they are in a school setting. Many parents don’t know that just by reading a story and talking about the characters in the book it is just as beneficial of a learning experience.
What’s your fondest personal reading memory as a child or reading to your own children?
Since both my boys were born I have a nightly routine of bath, books then bed. Some nights are very hectic and reading time sometimes will get missed. My oldest son (almost 4 years old) will come in my room with a book so that we can have that moment. I can never say no! We end up reading 3 or 4 sometimes 5 books at a time.
Why is reading important to you?
My life is always go, go, go. Reading puts the brakes on a busy day. At least for a little while. It is a time that you and whomever can have a moment to connect and remove technology that often overwhelms families these days. Now that I am older, reading is also a way to get my mind off of the day-to-day stresses.
Is there anything else you would like to share?
Reading is so vital to children as well as adults. Pick a time of day even if for only 5 minutes to sit and read something together. It could be a new book or an old one, a newspaper or a magazine. The content is important, but not as much as the time spent together. The time spent together is so important- especially today when life gets so busy.
Rene is now a healthy 2-year- old that still loves to read. Recently, we met with his mother, Erika, to talk about why she loves reading with Rene and her 6-year-old daughter, Alondra.
Reading books together helps babies create a foundation for lifelong learning by building skills that fluent readers take for granted. Babies have to learn that there are patterns in the sounds they hear, and that these sounds make words. They have to learn that the squiggly lines in books are letters and those letters make words. They also have to learn that there is a connection between those letters they see and the sounds they hear. That’s a lot of work for a baby! However, this connection, called print awareness, is one of the most basic pre-literacy skills and is absolutely necessary before a child can learn to read.
We are thrilled to welcome our new Communications Specialist, Sydney Milner. Sydney joins our team as a full-time volunteer through the AmeriCorps VISTA program.
Monica Tiffany is the Creative Director at Merrigan & Co, specializing in developing effective communications strategy for organizations. Monica has a plenty of experience working with nonprofits, as she has written for Shriners Hospitals for Children, National Geographic, the American Red Cross, and many others. She has also been an active member of RORKC’s event planning committee. Monica shares the following about the importance of being read to:
Cathy McCaddon is the Senior Vice President of Keybank Real Estate Capital and has 20 years of experience in real estate finance. Cathy will enter retirement soon, and she looks forward to spending more time volunteering, specifically with early childhood development. She has a great volunteer background, including her participation in The Greater Kansas City Pi Beta Phi Alumnae Club: She was named Pi Phi of the year in 2015. Cathy shares the following about why she looks forward to supporting RORKC:
to think about when being in conversation with your children. She presents the research that explains importance of being in conversation with children in an easy to read and understand way, and reminds us of the impact that our conversations can have on children, both negative and positive.
This year’s Hooked On Books Challenge collected more than 24,000 gently used books to be redistributed to kids who need them throughout our community. 19 area schools participated in the annual book drive during January and February. All the books were sorted and distributed in March. Almost 10,000 books went to waiting rooms in Reach Out and Read’s 52 partner clinics. The rest were distributed to local agencies including W.E.B. Dubois Learning Center, The Urban Scholastic Center, The Upper Room, Literacy Kansas City, and several schools in KCK.
Adolescent mothers are more likely to experience maternal depression. This is likely a cause of the elevated language delay for their children, since depression can impair a mother’s ability to be a responsive caregiver. Fortunately, reading aloud together encourages mothers to enjoy time spent with children while doing something fun and interactive, resulting in healthier attachments and reduced depression.
