Reading Therapy Dogs

Anonymous Patron would like to share this article about using dogs to help kids read. AP included the text of the article because it will be unavailable after 10 days.

Anonymous Patron would like to share this article about using dogs to help kids read. AP included the text of the article because it will be unavailable after 10 days.Furry reading friends

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In a novel twist to raise reading skills, program uses dogs to help pupils

By PAUL WESTMOORE
News Niagara Bureau
4/11/2004


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HARRY SCULL JR./Buffalo News
Volunteer Jackie Newman assists second-grader Celeste Murphy with her reading. Her assigned dog is Maverick, a golden retriever.


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HARRY SCULL JR./Buffalo News
Second-grader Dillon Olear reads to Ice, his therapy dog, at Anthony L. Fricano Primary School in Pendleton.

PENDLETON – The dogged pursuit of learning looks a little different in a Pendleton elementary school.
Since October, about 55 first- and second-graders who have been struggling with reading have improved their skills by reading stories one-on-one to registered therapy dogs.

The “Reading With Rover” program is the only one of its kind in Western New York and possibly the only one in the country that’s set in a school, said Roberta Wyner, principal at Anthony L. Fricano Primary School.

And while it started off as an experiment, she said it has proven to be an effective tool in helping children read. Every participant’s reading skills have been brought up to grade level over the past six months by reading 30 minutes a week to dogs.

“This is amazing,” Wyner said. “When you can get a child who does not read well or doesn’t like to read to look forward to reading – that right there, as far as I’m concerned, is a major step in the right direction. They just can’t wait to read. That’s amazing and wonderful.”

Dillon Olear certainly thinks so. He sits on the floor with Ice, an Italian hunting dog, hovering over his shoulder, reading “The Three Bears.”

“It’s fun,” the 7-year-old Dillon said. “I like doing it a lot. It helps me.”

Dillon then continued reading to Ice while the dog’s owner, Becky Iannone, helped him sound out the difficult words.

Celeste Murphy said she was having trouble with reading and is doing much better since she started reading to her pal Maverick, a 75-pound Golden Retriever.

“I like doing it,” the 8-year-old said. “I like to come to school when it’s my turn to read to Maverick.”

Maverick is owned by Jackie Newman, who founded the program with Wyner, recruits volunteers and coordinates it.

Newman said she and Wyner came up with the idea for Reading With Rover a couple of years ago after hearing about a similar program that Therapy Dogs International was running in cooperation with a library – not a school – in Colorado.

Iannone is the Western New York representative for Therapy Dogs International. She is authorized to test dogs before they can be registered and insured to work with children, senior citizens, the disabled and other people in need of “emotional support.”

To work with children, Iannone said, the dogs must have the right temperment and be able to withstand a lot without reacting. She said Maverick and Ice, for example, love to be with kids and never bark, are never aggressive and don’t play rough while they are working.

Wyner said the program has been successful for a number of reasons.

“The advantage is the child gets to practice reading in an environment that’s totally comfortable and secure with the dog next to them. Sometimes the child pets the dog while reading to it. Sometimes the dog puts its head on the child’s lap. Sometimes the child rests on the dog,” she said.

“It’s just a very nonthreatening situation where they don’t have to feel embarrassed if they don’t read a word correctly like they might in front of their classmates. It helps them relax and focus on their reading,” she said.

Add a dog’s unconditional love into the mix, and you have a winning plan, Iannone said.

“It provides the emotional support the kids need,” she said. “The dogs don’t correct them. They don’t say, “You have to do this and be perfect at it.’ They’re just there to be read to.”

And because almost every pupil in the school wants to read to the dogs, it offers the kids who participate an element of status, boosting their self-confidence, making them better students and drawing other children to them whom they otherwise might not have become friends with, Wyner said.

Wyner said the school’s kindergarten teachers would like their pupils to participate. Teachers and pupils at Starpoint Intermediate School are interested. She said she has had numerous inquiries from other school districts about the program.

And while most of the kids in the program are there for reading help, Newman said, it is flexible enough that, if a child has special problems, teachers will give Wyner the heads-up on a situation, and they’ll admit the child into the program.

Iannone said she had one pupil who was upset because his cat died.

“He came in and just talked to Ice the whole time about his cat dying. It was perfect,” she said.

Maverick has one girl who came in initially and just sat in a chair in the corner, Newman said.

“She didn’t want to interact with the dog. She didn’t want to read. She didn’t want to touch,” Newman said. She was very very shy. “Now she is to the point where she comes in, she’s on the floor with the dog, she’s planning ahead, she’s picking out a book, she’s conferring with the librarian.

“When it was time for her turn to leave the program (because she was doing so well), she actually broke down crying. We re-evaluated and ended up continuing her because she had come so far and had broken out of her shell,” Newman said.

The kids aren’t the only ones who benefit.

“Maverick doesn’t like to leave school,” Newman said. “I’ve physically had to carry him to get him to leave because he likes the kids so much. He will lie down on the floor so flat even his lips are flush to the floor. And I have to pick him up dead weight and carry him to the car. He weighs 75 pounds.

“That’s become the big joke. Did you get him out of school without carrying him?”

e-mail: [email protected]”