This is a program that uses therapy-certified dogs to visit elementary schools to improve students’ confidence in reading aloud. We are partnering with West Belmar Elementary School to evaluate the impact that the Tail Waggin’ Tutor Program has had on student reading scores. During the 2011-2012 school year, West Belmar introduced a program where screened and certified therapy dogs visited K through 5th grade classrooms once a week as part of the reading curriculum. Children read to the dogs in small groups and write stories about the dogs. Teachers and parents reported increases in reading ability above what would normally be expected developmentally. They also noted improvement in writing, motivation to read, and behavior. The purpose of this project is to demonstrate empirically these anecdotal findings.
More recently, we have begun evaluating the results in light of a comparison school. We have also looked at our outcome measures: how do reading and writing attitude measures which use a 4-point Likert scale compare to dichotomous items?
Student researchers will:
- Perform literature review
- Gather and analyze the archived data
- Disseminate results through papers or presentations