MONCTON – For the first time, the Anglophone East School District in the Moncton area is allowing reading therapy dogs into the classroom.
Moncton High School is getting to try out the idea first.
The pilot project was sparked by a mother who was looking for a way to encourage her special-needs son to read.
Born with a host of developmental delays, 15-year-old Neil Downey has always struggled to read, says his mother Shawna Downey.
“He would avoid it, it might take me an hour to even convince him to do it,” she said.
That was, up until this past winter, when a four-legged reading buddy came into his life and everything changed.
“Bo” is a 5-year-old golden Poodle and has become a beloved study partner. Paula Sears is Bo’s handler and a member of Therapy Trail Blazers. Sears says the club was already running a therapy reading program with kids outside the school system.
But this is the first time they’ve taken their dogs into a New Brunswick classroom.
“It’s a non-judgmental atmosphere for the child,” Sears said. “If they have a reading difficulty, a lot of children will shrink to the back of the class or they won’t raise their hand to read.
“But reading to a dog one-on-one, there’s no judgment.”
Bo sits beside Neil to read once a week.
“His confidence has really soared because of it,” said Downey.
She says she hopes it’s the start of something special that other kids can benefit from in the future.
“It made him more motivated to want to pick up a book and choose a book and be able to read it to Bo.”
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