A Book, Not An Apple, A Day

The American Academy of Pediatricians (AAP)  published a policy statement earlier this week that lays out the developmental benefits of routinely reading aloud with young children, including infants.  AAP recommends that pediatricians counsel parents that reading aloud with young children “can enrich parent-child interactions and relationships, which enhances their children’s social- emotional development while building brain circuits to prepare children to learn language and early literacy skills.”

We at Need To Know Publishing could not agree more and applaud efforts by Too Small to Fail (Clinton Foundation/Next Generation), Scholastic, and Reach Out & Read to help translate this policy statement into reality.

We are especially happy to see the emphasis on reading with, and not just to, kids in AAP’s recommendations. We launched our series of What Every Child Needs To Know board books with the hope that they might spark exactly this sort of  interaction between adults and the pre- and early-readers in their lives. Our goal is to produce visually appealing books on important topics in a format that is easy for small hands to hold.

You can read the AAP policy statement here.