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Read
to Me! Program believes literacy is every child's birthright
Imagine walking into a hospital room where a mom and dad are cuddling their newborn baby in their arms, reading stories, singing songs and chanting rhymes.
This remarkable scene is being repeated over and over again each day in hospitals across Nova Scotia thanks to the Read to Me! Program. The roots of the program go back several years when the Department of Education and the IWK Health Centre talked about the possibility of developing an infant literacy program that would reach every newborn in the province. Distinguished pediatrician Dr. Richard Goldbloom, Read to Me! Honourary Chair, championed the cause as he felt that the simple act of putting books into the hands of very young children would do much to change low literacy rates in Nova Scotia. At present over 52% of Atlantic Canadians struggle with basic literacy. Given the correlation between literacy and health, it seemed foolish not to invest in the early years.
Advances in science have proven what
most of us have long known to be true.
For hundreds of years, parents have
rocked their babies and sang them songs
and chanted nursery rhymes, knowing
instinctively that it was the right thing to
do. 
Now we understand in measurable
scientific terms what Mother Goose knew
all along.
The simple act of holding a baby, singing a song or telling a story can have enormous, lifelong benefits. As well as promoting mental development, and the acquisition of language, reading helps with the important bonding process between parent and child. Parents who read to their babies are holding them close, making eye contact, interacting with them and learning important communication cues.
Read to Me! welcomes every newborn into the world with the gift of books and the message that reading is their birthright. The program is based in all hospitals in Nova Scotia that provide maternity services and the provincial office is located at the IWK Health Centre in Halifax.