TORONTO – Children are improving their literacy skills while reading to a dog at St. Anthony Catholic School.
Irene Fung founded Caring Canine Toronto, a non-profit organization run entirely by volunteers who share their unconditional love of their pets with the Toronto community.
This organization has been offering free animal assisted therapy since 2003. They have developed many programs for all ages including Reading with Professor Dogs.
This program is geared towards reluctant readers, and runs once a week from September to June in 5 elementary schools across the city.
“It’s a safe, caring type of situation where the students come and they read to the dogs, and the dogs are non-judgemental, the dogs are kind, they never reprimand them and the children just absolutely love it,” said Beverly Pavan, Principal of St. Anthony Catholic School.
With the help of a volunteer, children get to read one-on-one to a professor dog. The volunteers use specific techniques, such as breaking down and sounding out words to help improve the student’s literacy.
Fung said that these dogs are helping the children read because “research has actually shown that when a child reads to an adult or reads to a peer, his blood pressure goes up, but when a child reads to a dog, his blood pressure goes down…the child is relaxed when he’s reading or interacting with the dog and that helps them learn.”
“It’s been amazing over the four years I’ve been doing this to see the improvement in the students,” said Chari Sadinsky, volunteer.
Pavan says that these professor dogs are definitely making a difference in her school, and “they just are totally devoted to the child that is reading to them.”
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