Baltimore's health commissioner, Joshua M. Sharfstein, and schools CEO Andres Alonso are rightly urging parents, particularly low-income parents, to read to their young children. That may sound like a no-brainer, but too many young children are not read to regularly, making them ill prepared even for preschool and decreasing their chances for academic success and healthier lives. That is as true in Maryland as elsewhere; some parents here need more support to give their children a better educational foundation.
National groups such as Reading Is Fundamental have launched outreach campaigns to persuade more low-income African-American and Latino parents to read to their children more often. Maryland doesn't provide money specifically for such efforts, but local jurisdictions can promote early literacy using Thornton plan money.
That makes sense, given that research has increasingly identified a child's first five years as a critical period for rapid language development. In the past year, Baltimore's Health Department has spearheaded a public health challenge through the Reach Out and Read program that has resulted in the medical community providing more than 60,000 books to parents in the city with instructions that they read to their children.
It's a good start, but getting more doctors involved is only part of the solution to eliminating educational deficits in Baltimore and other areas in Maryland. Early results from a literacy study show that only 51 percent of Maryland children age 5 and under are read to by their parents every day. Among children in low-income families, the figure drops below 40 percent.
That's profoundly sad, not just because so many children are being deprived of the joy that books can bring to their lives, but also because of the potential long-term academic consequences.