At CMLE, we love animals and recognize the positive impact they can have in the workplace!
That’s why we decided to have a special visitor come in last week – my greyhound, Lady Grey!
She was a very calming presence in the office, as we encountered some technology challenges, and also made many new friends who were happy to come give her lots of attention!
As you can see, Lady Grey did a great job supervising our CMLE office! She will likely come back to visit, and we will let you know when that happens, if you’d like to come say hello! She loves new friends, especially when they are library people 🙂
We have talked about the great work dogs do in libraries to help kids with their reading, and some of you already have these dogs hard at work in your library.
This month, as we look at ways to mange stress in our libraries and workplaces, we wanted to look at dogs again; this time looking at pups who work to help bust stress! An increasingly popular activity in academic libraries, especially as the semester wraps up, therapy dogs provide a tool for libraries to help their communities to be successful in their work.
University of Houston provides pups in the library as part of their finals offerings
The stereotypical animal that is often associated with libraries (and librarians!) is the cat. And here at CMLE, we definitely love cats. But dogs can be even more helpful when it comes to libraries, and reading in general, especially when it comes to teaching literacy to kids.
This adorable Tweet sparked our curiosity. Just how much do dogs help kids with their reading skills? We also wondered where else in our area might dogs be interacting with kids, students, books, and libraries?
First, we discovered just how helpful dogs can be when it comes to assisting kids with their reading skills. This article from Public Libraries Online shares research done that states, “Children who read to dogs improved their own reading skills in comparison to children who did not read to dogs, based on the results of the Oral Text Reading for Comprehension Test” and even “reported a greater enjoyment of reading than children who did not read to dogs.” When kids are able to practice their reading skills out loud to a patient, non-judgmental listener (like a dog!) their reading improves, and just as importantly, their love of reading grows!
For real-life inspiration, we found a few instances of dogs and kids enjoying reading together. This article from MN Women’s Press tells the story of Lesa Hobright-Turner and her READ dog, Murphy, and their impact on a little girl with ADHD. The Hibbing Daily Tribunefeatured this article about kids reading with dogs at Keewatin Elementary school. The Rochester Public Library has the program “Sit, Stay, Read” that takes place the fourth Monday of the month from September – November. Finally, the Two Harbor’s Public Library has a program “Read to a Dog” that takes place on Fridays, featuring Lucy the dog:
We’re sure there are more programs out there, and would love to hear about them! Do you know of, or participate in, any activity that features animals helping kids with their reading? Let us know!
