How Much
Is that Doggie
in the Classroom?

As public schools search for ways to satisfy the No Child Left Behind mandate of having every student become a proficient reader by year 2014, administrators and curriculum specialists look to an array of effective strategies to help students improve their reading skills.

Reading First, a federally funded reading initiative, is one example of a prescribed approach for teaching reading skills at the elementary level. Whole language instruction, the close examination of literary works, the LitTunes methodology, and guided reading are other methods employed in the school arena.

And then there's the puppy dog.  

Yes, our canine friends have jumped into Literacy Park, eager in their special, tail wagging way to help students improve their reading skills.

I discovered this delightful new methodology in a news report about a middle school in Georgia, where a most unusual reading companion was invited into to the classroom: a four-year-old black Labrador retriever named Amelia. She is part of Canine Assistants, a non-profit group that trains dogs to work with people who have special needs.

Amelia began her training to work with humans when she was 17 days old. Part of that training requires her to sit quietly and be docile — listening skills par excellence.

Eureka!

In one of those inspirational eureka moments, a curriculum specialist reasoned that Amelia's receptive nature could fit nicely into an innovative classroom reading strategy, one designed to overcome the fears of less skilled or excessively self-conscious readers, who are intimidated by the prospect of reading aloud to their peers.

Here's how it works. For 45 minutes, students from the sixth-grade class at Baker Middle School in Alpharetta, Georgia, read passages from their favorite books to an admiring Amelia. The readers, books in hand, sit in a small group around the pup, taking turns reading aloud. Student readers observe that Amelia doesn't laugh at them when they mispronounce a word — and something about the doggie's presence makes peer pressure simply melt away. Amelia listens attentively to each reader and appears to appreciate every word, every phrase. Her reward is lots of attention and petting.

The teachers note that students in Amelia's circle enjoy reading aloud more than ever before. They also pay polite attention to their classmates while they are reading to Amelia. Reading rates and fluency are improving, teachers say. One pointed out that every one of her students advanced at least one reading level from fall to spring.

Let's Lower the Filter.

I'm sold on the idea. Therefore — bark! bark! — I propose introducing a perro, a chien, a Hund, into foreign language (FL) classes.

Most FL teachers will tell you how hard it is to get students to speak in a second language. A student's "affective filter," a theoretical concept which identifies and tracks levels of anxiety in the classroom, all too often rises to uncomfortable levels when the student is asked to speak aloud in the target language. A high filter translates into heightened anxiety and reluctance to participate.

A canine companion in the FL classroom would decrease the affective filter by inspiring students to take more pleasure in reading aloud in another language. Student readers would gain confidence in their reading skills. They would also learn to be attentive listeners, allowing them to hear their peers pronounce words with proper stress and intonation. With pup power at work in the classroom, the goal of enhancing reading fluency would be, well.... a walk in the park.

To read Amelia's story,
click on the pup:

Freddie A. Bowles
Assistant Professor, Curriculum and Instruction
University of Arkansas
fbowles@uark.edu

Posted on Wednesday, July 23, 2008

   This is the first step toward THE One World Language.
   Step Back: Balderdash and bombast in a binomial!