On Monday, September 18, Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz told a group of youngsters at the East New York Diagnostic and Treatment Center just how dinosaurs say “good night”, as he led story time for Reach out and Read of Greater New York.

Reach Out and Read is a national nonprofit program that works to make literacy promotion a standard part of pediatric primary care by encouraging doctors and nurses to advise parents about the importance of reading aloud to their children. The program also provides books at medical check-ups to children aged 6 months to 5 years old.

Borough President Markowitz announced a $50,000 grant that will help expand the Reach Out and Read program at the East New York Diagnostic and Treatment Center and 41 other sites across Brooklyn that already provide books to more than 73,000 children annually.

“In this day and age, literacy is not just about education, it’s about self respect,” said Borough President Markowitz. “I commend Reach Out and Read for its innovative approach: by providing books to children at medical check-ups and encouraging parents to read aloud to their kids, they are making it very clear — literacy is a vaccination against ignorance.”