Reading is for the Dogs

© Charles B. Barton
Compulsory Education

I've always enjoyed reading, and I never minded reading in front of my class, especially if I could practice ahead of time.  But that's not the case for everyone.  For some, reading is a challenge, for others they don't like the attention of reading out loud.  Yet, round robin reading is still something that is used in classrooms everyday.

So why am I writing about this in my blog?  Because many places are using animals to help struggling readers.  Dogs are great listeners, they don't correct you when you don't pronounce a word right.  They don't even seem to care whether you are a slow reader or not.  Having a child read to a dog allows the child to practice reading aloud.  Different skills are used in silent reading vs. oral reading, so encouraging both types of reading is important.  Plus, having an animal around makes things more fun, and it's great for new readers to equate reading with fun.

I'm talking mainly about dogs as reading pals because all of the animal partner reading programs that I know of use dogs.  That might be because cats have a tendency to sit on the book when you are trying to read it, which isn't really conducive to reading.  Or is that just something that my cat does?