As you might know, the assistance dogs help people with various physical or mental disabilities nowadays. But there is a program in the US and in other countries which helps children to improve their reading and communication skills.
R.E.A.D. program – The Reading Education Assistance Dogs was founded in 1999 in Salt Lake City and its aim is to improve the literacy of children using therapeutic teams with assistance dogs. And with quite a simple method - reading out to a dog. But it is no ordinary dog. All the dogs involved in the program are registered therapy animals.
The volunteers together with their therapy dogs visit schools, libraries or other facilities where they arise very positive responses of the children themselves as well as of their parents and teachers. The dog companion can encourage children to read, give them a reason to read, even when they do excel in it and it helps them to find the courage to improve themselves. There is a significant progress of reading skills in the pupils participating in the program and an improvement of their self-confidence, too. To learn how to read is often more about overcoming the fear than about mental limitations. That is why the program is focused on both ordinary pupils and the children with special needs.
R.E.A.D. is the first such program where therapy dogs are used to improve reading, communication and social skills of children and which also teaches them to love books and reading itself. Other non-profit organizations then started operating based on this program. R.E.A.D. teams work (except from the United States) in Canada, England, Italy, Finland, France, Sweden, South Africa, Australia, Slovenia, Spain, the Netherlands, Germany and Norway and in other countries. It could be a good idea to start such activity in the Czech Republic, right?
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