Report from Clinton Global Initiative 2014

This is Hillary en route from a working group to the CGI first plenary session where she announced a new effort to raise awareness among parents about early language development.

The problem in a nutshell: Children from deprived backgrounds have heard 3 million fewer words by the time they start kindergarten--"and they never catch up," as a teacher friend of mine put it.

The program is collaborative and involves the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), Scholastic Inc. the world's largest publisher of children's books, and Too Small to Fail, an organization that promotes early reading to children.

At the mention of Too Small to Fail, a titter ran through the crowd as they recalled the similar expression "too big to fail". Hillary gave a wry smile, said simply "yeah, I know," and continued on.

She announced that the American Academy of Pediatrics will recruit all 60,000 pediatricians in the country to promote early reading to children, and Scholastics will donate 500,000 books.

At least three times, she used the expression "read and sing" to children. I consider this a reflection of Ms. Clinton's Methodist background. It was John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, who encouraged Methodists to "sing lustily and with good courage."

Plus, as a pastor, I've noticed a general decline in public singing, or even the ability to sin. I was cheered that Mrs. Clinton included the importance of singing as well as reading.

Comments

[Robin Patryas]

"The ability to sin"? Got a good laugh from that. Thanks for the typo.

[John Petty]

Hi Robin. Oops! Didn't catch that, and you did!

Thanks for your visit.