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Our Programs
The Reach Out and Read Kansas City program works to ensure as many children as possible in the Kansas City area are provided with books of their own and enter school ready to succeed.
School Readiness Program 
Reach Out and Read Kansas City makes literacy promotion a standard part of pediatric care so that children grow up with access to books and engaged parents and enter school ready to learn. Starting at birth through age five, pediatric practitioners incorporate a book and the importance of reading into routinely scheduled well-child checkups utilizing three components:
- counseling parents about the importance of reading aloud to their young children every day;
- giving the child a free, new developmentally and culturally appropriate children's book to take home during their well-child checkup;
- creating literacy-rich waiting rooms with volunteer readers, reading corners and books.
Kindergarten Book Bag Program 
At the four-year-old well-child visit, each Reach Out and Read Kansas City participant receives a book bag with two books, handouts, and activity sheets to help the child and family prepare for a successful transition into kindergarten.
Clinic Partners
- Argentine Family Care
- Baby & Child Associates
- Children’s Mercy – Operation Breakthrough
- Children's Mercy – Pediatric Care Center
- Children's Mercy – Special Care Clinics
- Cockerell & McIntosh Pediatrics - Blue Springs
- Cockerell & McIntosh Pediatrics – Independence
- Family Health Care
- Goppert-Trinity Family Care Center
- Jackson County Health Department
- KU – Developmental and Behavioral Pediatrics
- KU – Family Medicine
- KU – Pediatrics
- KU – MedWest
- KU – Prairie Village
- KU – Neonatal Medical Home
- Samuel U. Rodgers Health Center
- Samuel U. Rodgers Health Center-Cabot Westside
- Swope Health – Central
- Swope Health – Tenney
- Swope Health – West
- Swope Health – Wyandotte
- Swope KidsCARE – Tenney Pediatrics
- University Health – Center for Family Health
- University Health – Grain Valley
- University Health – Lakewood
- Vibrant Health – Central
- Vibrant Health – Children’s Campus
- Vibrant Health – Cordell D. Meeks, Jr.
- Vibrant Health – Family Medicine
"Since many of the children I only see once, and the group of children varies each day, the bonding and relationship you have with them is very short, however, the reading experience and reminding them how much fun reading is, lasts much longer...and that's why I enjoy volunteering for this program!"- Volunteer, Reach Out and Read Kansas City