This week's Artdog Image(s) of Interest
Today's images show an increasingly frequent literacy strategy for helping children learn to read with greater fluency and confidence: using reading therapy dogs.
As you'll see if you take time to watch this video, reading to dogs can help children with difficulties grow into stronger readers--but also gain confidence, and improve in all sorts of other areas you might not expect, from better math skills to improved hygiene!
The first recorded use of animals for therapy that I've been able to track down was a program for disabled people to work with farm animals in Geel, Belgium in the 9th century (yes, during the Dark Ages), but they must've gotten the idea from somewhere--namely, the millennia-long history of interactions between humans and the other animal species they encountered, lived and worked with.
Side note: there's still an active focus on community-based psychiatric care in Geel today, based on its very old tradition.
During August, I celebrated the traditional back-to-school season with a return to the "roots" of this blog (which used to be called Artdog Educator) and a focus on education, which has been well received. I thought the photos and video of dogs at work to help children read was an appropriate way to close out this theme (for the moment) and segue into my September "Creative Approaches to Work" series.
Keep checking back, for more working dogs in September.
IMAGES: Many thanks to FirstBook’s article Sit, Stay, Read about a program in the Chicago Schools, for the photo of the girl reading to the dog in her classroom, and to the Stamford Advocate, for the photo of two girls on a couch in Stamford, CT reading to a dog, and article about a local literacy program that uses dogs in schools. Thanks also to YouTube and Intermountain Therapy Animals of Salt Lake City, UT, for the video about their Reading Education Assistance Dogs.
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