Talk, Read, Sing
Supporting early childhood literacy and engagement
What is Talk Read Sing?
Talk, Read, Sing is part of the national Too Small To Fail campaign founded in 2013. This public awareness and action campaign aims to promote early brain and language development, empowering parents with the tools to confidently talk, read, and sing with their young children. By empowering parents to be their child’s first teacher, the program promotes knowledge about the importance of brain development in the critical 0-3 year period.
How Are Talk, Read, Sing Bundles Distributed?
Through the generous support of the Association of Auxiliaries for Children at the Lucile Packard Children's Hospital (LPCH) Stanford, we have been able to bring Talk, Read, Sing to families in the mid-peninsula. We have distributed Talk, Read, Sing educational materials to families at the Well Baby Nursery at LPCH and at Ravenswood Family Health Center, Fair Oaks Clinic, Gardner Packard Clinic, and the Mayview Community Health Center.
Our Talk, Read, Sing bundles are geared to three specific age groups--newborns, 9-month-olds, and 18-month-olds. Bundles are equipped with a bilingual board book, T-shirt promoting early childhood learning, a bilingual CD of nursery rhymes, and a parent tip sheet available in both English and Spanish. Delivering 1500 bundles each year, we hope to improve early childhood education and school preparedness one bundle at a time.
What is the impact of Talk, Read, Sing To Date?
Since the fall of 2017, we have distributed over 2,717 Talk, Read, Sing Bundles to our partnering clinics
In each bundle you will find the following:
Here are our partnering clinics we distribute to:
Testimonials
They are appreciative of the gift. Some of them tell me about how the older siblings are going to read to the baby and what they already have prepared at home to raise the baby and kind of their understanding of how important [school readiness] is
“Talk Read Sing is something that is really special for the families. They feel really appreciated and they sort of look forward to it. And now we're to the point where like they've heard that other patients got it and they want it too. So it's been really great
-MD at safety net clinic
Judy Koch: Bringing Books to Children with Love and Joy
May 18, 1943 - February 21, 2023
“Live life with purpose!” Judy Koch was fond of saying—and that she did, most notably with the founding of nonprofit Bring Me a Book in 1997. Judy’s mission was to help all children grow a joyful and sustainable reading habit.
Judy’s life of purpose was driven by her unique kindness, generosity of spirit, and joie de vivre. She made every day an adventure, shaped by her desire to live life to the fullest and her commitment to make life better for others.
Judy’s life mission was to spread joyful literacy. It emerged during her first career as a junior high school English teacher and deepened in her second career as the owner and CEO of RSP Manufacturing, a precision sheet metal fabrication company that served Silicon Valley tech companies.
In the RSP factory, she created a model of “workplace literacy” by building a library of exquisite children’s books for her employees, primarily recent immigrants from Mexico, to bring home to their children. After she sold the business, this model expanded to become Bring Me a Book.
Inspired by the words of poet and author Walter de la Mare: “I know well that only the rarest kind of best in anything can be good enough for the young,” Judy curated an exemplary book collection for young children from birth to age five.
Judy understood—through her close observations of children over the years—which books they loved best and wanted to hear read aloud again and again. The Bring Me Book legacy collections are known as “Read It Again!” books. They never fail to delight those fortunate children who, with their families, read the books again and again.
Judy never tired of seeing a child’s face light up with the joy of reading. She gave her heart to the literacy lives of children, lighting their lives and ours with her enthusiasm.
While Bring Me a Book will no longer exist as a nonprofit, it will be incorporated into the Stanford Center on Early Childhood (SCEC) and, in this way, Judy’s mission and vision will live on. Knowing the critical importance of sharing books with children from the moment of birth, Judy promoted the idea of a partnership with the SCEC as a way to extend and deepen the work she had initiated three decades earlier. Through the partnership, children and their families will receive books throughout early childhood, along with guidance on how to encourage young children’s engagement with books and skills in reading.
Donations in Judy’s honor can be made to the Stanford Center on Early Childhood Literacy Program