This year marks Reach Out and Read Wisconsin’s 10th anniversary! Forty-five clinics joined the network in 2019 to make it the program’s busiest year yet.
The first three years of a child’s life are critical. Reach Out and Read’s evidence-based, clinical intervention promotes healthy child development and leads to stronger communities. By focusing on supporting the parent-child relationship through building daily, language-rich routines, Reach Out and Read Wisconsin helps ensure that children have the foundation they need cognitively, socially and emotionally. 
Reach Out and Read Wisconsin provides an opportunity for nearly universal touch points with the state’s youngest and most vulnerable children. Reach Out and Read Wisconsin partners with more than 260 clinics, or one-third of the clinics providing primary care to children in the state. These clinics care for more than 1 in 3 of all children younger than age 6 in Wisconsin.
Reach Out and Read Wisconsin provides an opportunity for nearly universal touch points with the state’s youngest and most vulnerable children. Reach Out and Read Wisconsin partners with more than 260 clinics, or one-third of the clinics providing primary care to children in the state. These clinics care for more than 1 in 3 of all children younger than age 6 in Wisconsin.
Looking forward to the next 10 years, Reach Out and Read Wisconsin is hopeful that:
- All pediatric primary care clinics in the state foster positive, language-rich, parent-child interactions through early literacy promotion as a standard of care.
- All Wisconsin parents feel supported and mentored in strengthening their capacity and skills in supporting their child’s healthy development.
- All Wisconsin children grow up talking, singing, playing, exploring and sharing books in the lap of someone who loves and cares for them.
State and national conversations are focusing more on the impact of adverse childhood experiences and social determinants of health on children’s healthy growth and development. Nurturing parent-child relationships assist in buffering toxic stress and provide positive childhood experiences that assist in mitigating adverse childhood experiences. Prevention and health promotion are key to long-term, permanent change and to making our state’s children the healthiest in the nation.