When children first go to the doctor, Elizabeth Lippitt wants them to have the best of developmental screenings and an order to discover books.
“It’s a fact that many children enter kindergarten with a 1,500- to 2,000-word deficit, as compared with their peers,” says Lippitt, a Collaboration member who is director of Infant Welfare Clinic, at 320 Lake St.
Through Physicians Initiative, a move the Collaboration has begun to find ways of making screenings as thorough as possible, Lippitt also is tending to one of the group’s founding initiatives: Literacy begins at birth.
Her clinic is furnishing doctors’ offices with books so that children can be sent home from every visit with a different kind of prescription sample.
For details about Physicians Initiative, call Elizabeth Lippitt at Infant Welfare Clinic, 708/ 848-0528, ext. 226.
Deb Quantock McCarey
Help your child learn to love reading
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Read aloud to your child every day. Start immediately and don’t stop when he or she can read by him- or herself.
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Fill your house with books, new and used.
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Let your child see you reading. Set the example that reading is important.
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Let your child read before bedtime. Make sure everyone has a good bedside light for reading.
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Use your public library. Look for storytimes, reading incentive programs and events that might interest your child.
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Let your child choose his or her own books.
