AAT - Animal Assisted Therapy for Schools
In the Schools we document and keep track of goals. Some goals consist of:
- Increasing Reading grade levels
- Increasing comprehension
- Improving the rate and fluency of reading
- Improving self-esteem of children
- Improving attendance
- Improving hygiene
- Any other goals that the teachers feel we need to focus on.
We work as a team with the teachers and the librarian, along with the administration.
We come to the school and do a short presentation to the children about Therapy Animals and what they do. We tell them about each of our breeds with short fun, interactive discussions. Then we talk about and demonstrate how to safely approach dogs. After that we tell the kids that when our dogs have completed their "work", the thing that they all like to do best is to have someone read to them. Kind of like when they go to bed and they have someone read to them.
They are told that their school will be having READ dogs come to their school, so that students can help our dogs by reading to them. We ask who would like to read to our dogs. Of course all hands go up.
The most important thing that we stress to the school staff is that the kids should not think that they are going to "another remedial read "thing" because they can't read." They are pre-selected and we have the dogs select the children. They of course already know the names of the pre-selected kids. Sometimes the teachers draw their names out of a rigged hat.
This way they are viewed as the "lucky ones" and not just going to another remedial reading program. The other students look up to these kids which really helps their peer relationships.
Teams meet with each student for about 30 minutes. They develop a safe environment for the child so that he/she does not worry about any inhibitions developed because they feel they cannot read as well as their peers. They develop this relationship by having their pet partner (usually a dog) act as the facilitator during the session.
- Fido really did not understand what happened in the story so far, can you tell him what happened?
- Fido thought that was really sad, can you think of what might happen next and tell him?
- Can you tell Fido what that word means? He really wants to know.
We have Frequent Reader Cards and punch them after every book that they read.
AAA - Animal Assisted Activity for Libraries
In Libraries the goal is to motivate the children to read, make reading fun and enjoyable and most importantly to allow the children to read to the dogs in an environment that is non-judgmental
As added incentived, we give the readers trading cards and trading bookmarks with pictures and information about each of the R.E.A.D. dogs. We are always striving to make each reading encounter as fun and encouraging as possible.
Logistics
- Children sign up for participation
- Reading is done one-to-one – One R.E.A.D. pet partner with one child
- Semi private space if possible. Sometimes there are two to three R.E.A.D. teams in one large room at a time. This depends on the size of the room and if each team can be somewhat obscured from each other.
Format Options:
- Four week event
- Once a month event
- Signing up versus walk-ins