Hopa teams with local groups for reading from birth

Special to Havre Daily News

Children’s visits to pediatricians soon will likely include a prescription for the parent to read every day to the child starting from birth.

In June of this year, the American Academy of Pediatrics, which is an organization representing more than 62,000 pediatricians, recognized the importance of early verbal interactions to children’s development by urging doctors to encourage parents during each doctor visit to read, sing, and talk with their children daily.

In the Havre area, Bullhook Community Health Center, Hill County WIC, Northern Montana Childhood Development Center and Quality Life Concepts, who all serve as sources of early childhood information for the community, already weave these messages into their work and distribute children’s books and early learning materials to local families, and Hopa Mountain’s StoryMakers program helps them get that service out.

Hopa Mountain, a Bozeman-based organization with the mission to invest “in rural and tribal citizen leaders who are working to improve education, ecological health and economic development in their home towns,” partners with the north-central Montana organizations and others throughout the state to to share more than 30,000 high quality children’s books and early learning resource materials, a Hopa Mountain press release says.

“By getting books in the hands of caregivers and children, we want to encourage rich early learning experiences at home that can make a big difference in the development of a young child,” Bonnie Sachatello-Sawyer, executive director of Hopa Mountain, said in the release. “Reading is just one kind of vital interaction — the key is positive language development through storytelling, singing or just talking together” with Montana families.

According to the American Academy of Pediatrics, more than one in three children in America begin kindergarten without the language skills they need to begin reading.

“Reading regularly with young children stimulates optimal patterns of brain development and strengthens parent–child relationships at a critical time in child development, which, in turn, builds language, literacy, and social–emotional skills that last a lifetime,” AAP’s new policy states.

Pediatricians, Indian Health Services, WIC offices and public health nurses across Montana are providing parents with the encouragement and tools to help them read, sing, laugh and play with their children every day. Hopa Mountain’s StoryMakers Program partners with these and other organizations to build community teams of rural and tribal citizen leaders.

People can read about positive parenting tips and watch a five-minute video about reading with their children by visiting http://www.hopamountain.org. For information about Hopa Mountain’s StoryMakers program, call 406-586-2455.