Nationwide Children’s Hospital is bringing reading readiness checks into pediatric care, screening children as young as 3 during doctor visits in clinics chosen for their proximity to lower-performing schools. For some children and families in Columbus, the first exposure to literacy assessment comes in a medical setting rather than in kindergarten classrooms, as Nationwide looks to identify reading support needs before they widen into later academic struggles.
Sara Bode, the hospital’s medical director of school-based health, said that pediatric visits already include developmental screenings and repeated conversations with parents, making the office setting “an opportunity.” She said the hospital’s goal is to catch literacy challenges early and steer families toward ways to help their children—before school-based readiness assessments.
Nationwide selected clinics largely based on where nearby schools had lower scores on kindergarten readiness assessments, according to the report. Across Columbus City Schools, more than 63% of kindergarteners were behind on language and literacy skills during the 2024-2025 school year, based on state kindergarten readiness assessment data.
Nationwide’s clinic-based literacy screenings are part of a broader concern about childhood literacy nationwide. The report said the share of fourth graders considered proficient in reading is just above 30%, according to the 2024 National Assessment of Educational Progress, and reading proficiency has dipped by 4 percentage points since 2019 as schools have struggled to make up for pandemic learning losses.
To address this, Nationwide implemented literacy screenings in about half of its 13 clinics. The program launched in 2022 and has since conducted more than 2,400 screenings, according to the report, with many participating children coming from high-needs populations served by the hospital, including families who are uninsured or on Medicaid.
The hospital said the screenings are not intended to diagnose learning disabilities such as dyslexia. Instead, coordinators aim to identify areas where children could use additional support, using a tool that assesses children as they read through a book during primary care visits, in either English or Spanish. The report said the screenings take about 10 minutes and that the timing was refined to avoid moments when children might be upset, such as right after vaccinations.
After a screening, Nationwide’s coordinators can create a personalized literacy plan and provide families with modeled activities for at home, including reading aloud. Carneshia Edwards, who leads the hospital’s kindergarten readiness team, said families often worry their children “don’t know certain things,” but that the screenings are also about “exposing them” to more learning opportunities, not simply confirming missing skills.
The program also builds take-home literacy kits, with items shaped by donations and influenced by what Columbus City Schools teachers say students need when they enter kindergarten. The report said kits can include materials such as dry-erase boards for writing letters and books for reading practice, and may include tools to support motor skills such as safety scissors or pencils with rubbery grippers.
Coordinators stay in touch with families after the visits and sometimes refer children to early education programs such as Head Start or SPARK, a program that provides educational home visits. The report described follow-up screenings a year later, when coordinators meet children again to track progress and adjust support.
In the example given, Juri Sleet was screened at age 3, and her grandmother, Quintina Davis, said she had been concerned Juri did not have enough early learning opportunities. Davis said meeting with the literacy coordinator helped her see activities she could do at home, and she described a subsequent improvement over the following year in letter and sound recognition as well as sight words. Davis also said Juri enrolled in preschool at a local YMCA with the help of the literacy coordinator and that the follow-up process helped shape expectations for readiness by kindergarten.
The report said Devin Kearns, an early literacy professor at North Carolina State University, said early support outside the education system to flag reading difficulties is a step in the right direction, while emphasizing that choosing the right screening tool is key.