Program offers the gift of literacy for Buffalo’s babies
Free copies of ‘Goodnight Moon’ give at-risk infants an early start on learning
For some families, it’s a rite of childhood as familiar as the comb, brush and bowl full of mush it so lovingly describes.
For other families, it’s foreign — and slightly intimidating — territory.
Margaret Wise Brown’s 1947 children’s classic “Goodnight Moon” can be all of those things to different people.
Now, a fledgling program in Western New York aims to put “ Goodnight Moon” into the hands of every new mom who gives birth to a baby in area hospitals — and plenty of dads, too.
Along with the free book, new parents get simple lessons in a casual workshop setting on how to read to their babies starting from the very earliest ages — and information as to why they should make the effort.
“Your child will love books,” instructor Mary Beth Cunningham said to a roomful of new moms and dads in Women and Children’s Hospital last week. “Your child will have a bigger vocabulary — several thousand words, versus several hundred for a baby that’s not read to.
“It’s a big job for moms and dads.”
In nearly three years, the program has given away 4,372 copies of the famous little green, blue and orange book with the simple illustrations and the mesmerizing rhyme scheme: “Goodnight stars, goodnight air, goodnight noises everywhere.”
The “Goodnight Moon” initiative is part of “Ready, Set, Parent!,” a collaborative program founded by EPIC, the National Center for Parenting & Character Education, and Baker Victory Services.
The program began at Women and Children’s Hospital and now takes place in all four area childbirth hospitals, including Sisters, Mercy and Millard Fillmore Suburban.
In Western New York, the newborn literacy component fits into what has become a broad-based, communitywide effort to boost literacy in Buffalo- area children in the earliest stages of life, as a way to combat high poverty rates among city children.
In Buffalo today, one in three adults live in poverty, along with nearly 43 percent of the city’s children.
Other programs in the region right now focus on children in the prekindergarten age range, ages 3 to 5, and some pilot programs have begun working in day care settings among children as young as 6 months old.
The goal of EPIC and Baker Victory was to get to children even earlier on the growth curve — before they even leave the hospital as newborns.
“When we first started this, we saw it as a way to close the gap,” said Vito J. Borrello, president of EPIC. “But the side benefit is, every family needs this.”
In one of the training sessions, held in Children’s last week, Cunningham, the instructor, cheerily worked to drum up interest among the nearly 20 new parents packed into a small meeting room in a childbirth wing.
“Do you guys know “Goodnight Moon’?” she asked the moms and dads, many of whom cradled sleeping infants to their chests.
A hand or two went up. Some parents shook their heads. Others smiled or shrugged.
“Babies love this book,” said Cunningham, plunging ahead. “There’s a mouse that moves around. Babies love to find the mouse.”
At Good Schools for All, the group spearheading Buffalo’s “Read to Succeed” effort — which is showing promising early results in boosting literacy levels among poor city children — leaders applauded the infant-literacy program.
“This program certainly reaches them as early as you can possibly reach them,” said Helene H. Kramer, executive director of Good Schools for All. “The earlier parents know that reading is something you can start early in life, the better. You don’t have to wait for school. This starts when they’re born — or even before. A baby knows when they’re being held and cuddled. It begins to equate reading to pleasure. That’s enormous.”
The “Ready, Set, Parent!” program costs $500,000 each year to run, money that comes in the form of grants and insurance reimbursements, said Borrello, the EPIC president.
He said he considers that money well spent, given the number of new parents it allows the program to reach.
“If you were to reach out to these thousands of families in the community, you’d spend exponentially more than that,” Borrello said. “This is the one time when literacy, early learning and wellness converge. We have the ability to impact all of those things.”
In the Buffalo-area hospitals, parents are given a “special edition” of Brown’s classic hardback. The book comes in a customized dust jacket — designed by Melissa Leopard, a graduate student, a few years ago — which contains literacy facts, resource guides and an application for a library card through the Buffalo & Erie County system.
“Why not give them a piece of good literature?” asked Cunningham, who has a master’s degree in education and who drew up the initial curriculum for the literacy training several years ago.
“A lot of our parents can’t read themselves,” she said. “But I tell them, you don’t have to be able to read well. Just talk about the pictures.”
In the class in the hospital, Cunningham talks to parents about where they can get books for their children at little or no cost: through the library or in other inexpensive places.
“You need books? I’ve found a good way to get them is at Goodwill and the Salvation Army,” she told the moms and dads during a recent class. “They’re like a dime. Garage sales, people will give you a box for a buck.”
One new mother, Megan, a 19-year-old who lives off Clinton Street on the East Side and had just given birth to a girl named Kaela, came up to Cunningham after the class to tell her that she planned to take the lessons to heart. She said she had never heard of “Goodnight Moon” but would read the book to her infant.
“I’ve been talking to her,” she said of her baby. “I used to let her listen to music when I was pregnant. She’s made me turn my whole life around, already.”
The “Goodnight Moon” books are given out in 2,500 class sessions each year, to all parents who attend, EPIC organizers said.
In addition, specialists — Cunningham at Children’s, plus others at the three other hospitals — make a total of 7,000 in-room visits with new parents each year, to stress the same lessons.
Soon, EPIC organizers said, the “Ready, Set, Parent!” program will be extended into Niagara County.
The program is designed to link to, and lead into, a series of eight workshops that EPIC and Baker Victory Services offer new parents once they are out in the community.
“As far as we know, there is no other place in the country that offers this just the way EPIC does . . . where it’s comprehensive, from the classes to the community care, the whole package,” said Liese Ness, program director for EPIC.
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