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OSU medical students may help improve those odds through the America Reads Challenge Federal Work-Study program, a U.S.Department of Education program encouraging reading skills. The students read to children in hospitals, day care centers and other programs. Whitney Cline is coordinator for the Reading for Wellness program, which schedules reading times with local hospitals and the OSU Physician Clinic system. Other student readers are Natasha Ahmed, Matt Stiger and Steve Finley. The student doctors are participating in the community, learning how a hospital works, and getting patient contact. “Our students will be more comfortable in clinic settings and with people from different economic backgrounds,” Cline says. Most of the pediatric wards have children’s libraries, and the small patients, ages 18 months to about six years old, get to choose books for the students to read. Ahmed schedules volunteer readers at Crosstown Day Care Center. She says it’s “opened my eyes about how much kids look to adults as influences and how spending time with them makes such a difference. They really look up to us. And this is fun for them.” She likes best to read to two-and three-year-olds, and is considering becoming a pediatric specialist Dana
Livingston, director of financial aid and student life,
says the medical students learn, too. “They get a sense of
helping the community that is part of the principles of osteopathic
medicine. It’s a labor of love and learning.” |
If
current statistics hold true, a child born today in Oklahoma
has a one in five chance of not being able to read well. According
to literacy figures, that’s how many state residents can ’t
read at a fifth grade level or above.
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