children’s literacy, congratulating Putin and unresponsive lawmakers
Help them read
Do you remember being read to as a child? We all know that the ability to read is important. What isn’t always evident is when the fundamentals of our ability to read were developed.
As a pediatric resident physician, I inform families of the significant benefit of early reading on their children’s literacy and future academic success. Early literacy experiences are connected with improved oral language skills, reading comprehension and reading achievement tests identified in later grade levels. Conversely, limited early reading is connected with decreased language development and behavioral problems.
The quality of reading to your children is just as important as the number of times you read to them. It’s beneficial to have a variety of age-appropriate reading materials, to model appropriate reading and to demonstrate enjoyment and reflection from reading.
Need help building your child’s library? Programs such as Reach Out and Read Kansas City provide new, culturally and developmentally appropriate books during well-child visits to low-income children up to the age of 5.
Also, discuss concerns about your child’s reading ability with your medical provider. We want to work with you to give your child the best start possible, and reading is an essential part of that.
Nick Stasic
Kansas City
Historic outrage
On Tuesday, President Donald Trump publicly congratulated a tyrant, a former colonel of his nation’s secret police, on his sham of an election. (March 21, 1A, “Trump’s phone call to Putin raises hackles”)
In doing so, Trump shamed his office, this nation and the memory of all who struggled and died throughout the Cold War. The KGB, of which Russian President Vladimir Putin was a senior officer, was a criminal organization. The agency and its predecessors were directly responsible for the deaths of tens of millions of its own citizens.
Given this, I have to ask those who defend or dismiss this disgusting behavior merely because it was said by the leader of their political party: How on earth do you find a moral difference between a former colonel of the KGB and a former colonel of the Gestapo sufficient to accept this?
Here’s a hint: If you’re intellectually and morally honest, you can’t. A member of an organization responsible for millions of deaths can never be absolved or trusted. Once a snake, always a snake.
It’s a pity the occupants of 1600 Pennsylvania can’t see that. Such folly endangers us all.
Daniel W. Donath
Lee’s Summit
Pat responses
Dave Helling was spot-on when he wrote, “Lawmakers, it turns out, don’t listen to their constituents all that much.” (March 21, 15A, “Marching great, but votes for change is even greater”)
They also don’t directly answer their constituents’ questions. Over the last five decades as a resident of Kansas, I have written to my congressmen and senators many times, always trying to be clear, brief and to the point, and keeping it to one simple question.
Not once have I received a simple answer. Instead, I usually get a lengthy generic response on the broad, general topic, never addressing the specific question. Somewhere, there is a cave where minions look at the general category of my message, then dig up that topic’s boilerplate response.
My guess is that not one of my elected representatives has ever read my questions. They have certainly never answered them.
Jan Grebe
Roeland Park
By the numbers
According to the article “Panel acts on threat to gut Missouri health office for guarding virus info,” (March 20, 3A) Missouri legislators have requested data from the state’s health department on the number of people who have tested positive for exposure to the Bourbon virus. The department says it would be a violation of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, or HIPAA, to provide that information.
As a health care privacy consultant, I know the HIPAA privacy rule does not restrict disclosures on aggregate data. In fact, it explains the process for “de-identification” of data so that it can be shared when appropriate.
Did the General Assembly’s request go beyond a request for a mere tally? Did it in fact ask for information that could lead to identification of individuals? If so, then the HIPAA privacy rule must be followed.
However, if the request is only for aggregate data, then the Department of Health should be required to specify which provision of the privacy rule is being interpreted to block the request.
Yes, the privacy rule is there to provide individual protections, but it also allows for certain disclosures for the common good when done in accordance with the rule.
Joe Gillespie
Olathe
This story was originally published March 22, 2018 at 8:30 PM with the headline "children’s literacy, congratulating Putin and unresponsive lawmakers."