Read While You Wait – Facilitating Early Childhood Health and Literacy in Medical Waiting Rooms

The Kansas City Chapter of Reach Out and Read serves thousands of young children annually by providing books in pediatric doctors’ clinics throughout the metro area. Their focus is to make literacy promotion a standard part of early childhood development, allowing children to grow up with books and a love of reading. A special focus of Reach Out and Read is having a robust corps of volunteers to read to the children in the waiting rooms while they wait to see the physicians.

Although all Reach Out and Read clinics have the same mission, not all of them have comparable facilities for a kidfriendly reading environment. Because of this, our team undertook a redesign in four of the clinics: Sam Rodgers Clinic, Mercy and Truth, Swope Health Services (Independence), and Johnson County Health Department. A custom-tailored solution was created and implemented for each clinic based on their individual needs.

Over three weeks in March, the Burns & McDonnell and Spaces team constructed and assembled bookcases, tables, chairs, carpet, and specially-made banners which were then delivered to the clinics. A floor plan was set up to achieve a coherent reading environment for children that minimized disturbances from other environmental factors such as televisions. At Sam Rodgers Clinic a wall was even painted in blocks of various colors as a fun visual stimulus for the kids. The last portion of our project was a book drive to fill the new bookshelves in the clinic. Through donations of books and money, Reach Out and Read will be able to provide hundreds of new books for these clinics!