Pediatricians can play a role in promoting family literacy. Boston City Hospital has developed a model program that integrates family literacy into pediatric primary care, and has designed a program of research to evaluate its effects. The program has three components. In the waiting room, volunteers model for parents how to listen, question, discuss, and read books with children. Secondly, in the examination room, the pediatrician provides guidance about books by implicitly showing parents the principles of dialogic reading. Finally, at each visit, beginning at six months, the pediatrician gives the parent a developmentally and culturally appropriate book for the child to take home. A study of the program found that parents who had received guidance in books reported that looking at books was one of their child's three favorite activities. Preliminary results from the second study found that parents participating in this program employed a variety of book-sharing strategies and showed widely variable interaction styles when reading to their children. These studies indicate that pediatricians can effectively intervene in support of book use and literacy development. (MM)