Attitudes and practices of pre-reading and early childhood literacy promotion among family physicians in Romania

Abstract

Pre-reading and early childhood literacy skills are important for brain development and fundamental to a child’s long-term cognitive and social well-being. As such, the fostering of these skills is an important preventive health measure. Family physicians can play key roles in encouraging parents to routinely read with their children. However, in Romania, early childhood literacy screening and promotion are not currently integrated into medical practice. This paper summarizes mixed-methods research into the feasibility of implementing a physician-promoted early childhood literacy programme in Romania based on the American ‘Reach Out and Read' initiative; it describes and evaluates a small-scale implementation of a pilot early childhood literacy programme, Citesc Zilnic (‘Read Everyday'), in 15 medical practices. Results indicate that most Romanian family physicians recognize that early childhood literacy is important for child development, but do not screen for early childhood literacy skills, nor promote early childhood literacy as a preventive medical strategy. With institutional and cultural adaptations to a ‘Reach Out and Read'-based model, this research concludes that a high proportion of family physicians are very interested in a programme to screen for and promote early childhood literacy and may also find strong potential for promoting the basic concept of preventive health measures to the Romanian public, going beyond the initial goals of an early childhood literacy-promotion programme.