Kathy Walter-Mack is a longtime Kansas City educational administrator who engages with the Metropolitan Community College as associate vice chancellor of human resources and as chief of staff. Kathy Walter-Mack has been involved in her community for a number of years, volunteering with Kansas City Hospice and with Reach Out and Read. Extending nationwide, the latter nonprofit was established at Boston City Hospital in the late 1980s and is a strong advocate of childhood literacy.
A recent Reach Out and Read article focused on the importance of parents taking the initiative and becoming their infant’s first teacher on the road to literacy. The first few years are critical in the development of learning habits that last a lifetime. Significant growth occurs in the baby’s brain in a short space of time, with receptiveness extending to everything seen and heard.
Talking, singing, and reading to the pre-verbal child directly affects the facility with words he or she possesses when entering school. The more the child has been exposed to a variety of words and sounds, the better he or she will be able to adapt and take these skills to the next level: reading with enjoyment and a sense of exploration.
