Reach Out and Read
Florida Coalition

“We always look forward to our doctor visits, because it means a new book to take home and share as a family. Reading these books together has helped us bond even closer.”

A Reach Out and Read mother

Reach Out and Read® (ROR) is a national nonprofit organization that makes literacy promotion a standard part of pediatric primary care, so that children grow up with books and a love of reading.

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 6 months to 5 years of age, with a special focus on children growing up in poverty. By building on the unique relationship between parents and medical providers, Reach Out and Read helps families and communities encourage early literacy skills so that children enter school prepared for success in reading.

About Reach Out and Read Florida (ROR Florida)

Reach Out and Read Florida’s first site opened in 1996. The ROR Florida coalition received a grant from the ROR National Center in 2002. ROR Florida was further aided in expansion with support from the Florida Department of Education’s Just Read, Florida program in 2006. ROR Florida has more than 200 Sites serving 180,000 children per year. Two thousand medical providers have been trained in the ROR model. Florida ranks 46th in the nation for the number of parents who read to their young children daily. Those who aren’t read to are most likely to be among the school-aged children who read below grade level. ROR Florida medical providers are working to change this statistic by making literacy promotion a part of primary pediatric practice.

Reach Out and Read featured in Town & Country magazine as one of 25 outstanding charities.

Reach Out and Read featured at the first White House Conference on Global Literacy.

For a fourth consecutive year ROR has received the highest ranking from Charity Navigator, the only pediatric literacy organization awarded.