Reading to Dogs at the Library

Reading to Dogs

One of my daughter’s very favorite activities at the library is a program called “Paws to Read”. Volunteers bring their certified therapy dogs to the library, and are paired off with a child, and the child spends 20 to 30 minutes reading to the dog. At our library, the program is not ongoing, but has several sessions throughout the year, and my daughter watches the notices for when a new session is ready to begin to make sure I sign her up for a space.

The idea is that dogs are wonderful listeners. If the child is having difficulty with a word, or read awkwardly, the dog won’t care. It won’t correct them, or be disappointed in any way. Plus, kids love dogs. If your kid does not love dogs, these programs are not for you. They aren’t a way to get kids over a fear of dogs. They are just a way to encourage reading.

I’ve since learned that there are many different, but similar programs all over the bay, run by different groups. The groups I’ve found are:

Paws to Read

All Ears Reading, from Tony La Russa’s Animal Rescue Foundation (ARF)

Angel Ears, from the Homeless Animal’s Lifeline Organization (HALO)

I expect there are others as well. If you know of another, please leave a comment. These programs are very popular at all the libraries I’ve seen them offered at. Usually, they are so popular that advanced registration is required to get a reading spot. The dogs and their handlers are all volunteers, and there are just so many to go around.

Various libraries work their dog reading programs in different ways. I mentioned that ours has several sessions throughout the year that usually run for two or three months. Each child can sign up for a maximum of 3 reading appointments during a session. I’ve seen other libraries that have an ongoing program on an assigned day of the week.

Not all libraries have dog reading programs, but they are becoming more popular all the time. I suspect, one of the factors preventing the programs from expanding is the lack of dog and handler volunteers. The dogs have to go through training and certification to be eligible. It’s a big dedication on the part of both the dog and owner to take part in these programs. If you have a friendly dog, perhaps you’d be interested in looking into the requirements at the program links listed above. 

Make Pancakes - Fun Stuff to Do Anywhere

Make Pancakes

Kids love pancakes. Grownups do to, even if we don’t let ourselves partake that much. Pancakes are also super easy to make, especially if you use a mix. The perfect cooking project for kids to help out with. Obviously, an adult should do the riskier parts, like the actual cooking, but kids can measure and mix, and get the table set up with plates and butter and syrup.

I’ve seen some internet photos of some fancy pancakes, made into interesting shapes. If you’re brave you can try those too for extra fun. I’m lucky to pull off a normal round pancake, and want to make sure to make a pancake my kids will actually have fun eating, so I stick to the traditional. 

Have a Water Balloon Fight - Fun Stuff to Do Anywhere

While most kids are probably back to school by now, there is still enough summer heat around for this one. Take an afternoon, or weekend day - maybe when they're all hot after soccer practice - and start a water balloon fight in the backyard. It's the kind of fun memory you'll all look back on fondly.

Make a Fort with Blankets and Chairs - Fun Stuff to Do Anywhere

I remember the first time I helped my daughter make a fort out of the kitchen table and a blanket. She thought I was a genius. It surprised me that she needed me to show her how to do it. I guess I thought all kids were born knowing how fun making forts is. They're not.

If your kids have never built a fort from sheets and furniture, show them how. Get in there with them. If they have, help them make a new one today.

Have fun!

Fun Stuff To Do For Kids Anywhere

     To help fill in some of the lag time between posts, I'm starting a new feature of "Fun Stuff To Do For Kids Anywhere" that will not be about a specific Bay Area location or attraction. Instead it will be an idea for something families or kids can do for fun at home (or near home).

     Maybe it will be a craft project, or a game, or an activity that isn't location dependent. It won't always be something exciting, or even all that original. It'll probably be something you could have thought of yourself. Just something to get kids and families doing fun stuff together. Because that is important to me. And sometimes we just don't want to have to go someplace to do it.

     Today's suggestion: Build something with Legos together.

     Put on some fun music and dump your legos on the floor (or other building block things if you don't have legos) and build with your kids. This is fun for toddlers (with toddler safe blocks obviously) up through teens and adults. I remember my dad giving me a small $6 set of legos when I was 28, and we still had fun putting it together together.

     Have Fun!

Matteo's Dream Playground in Concord

This special playground was designed for a boy named Matteo who is blind and wheelchair bound, and other's like him. It is intended to be accessible to children of all levels and abilities. While I doubt all children could utilize all the features, there does seem to be something for everyone here. There are traditional swings, climbing structures, and stairs, but also a lot of ramps, and musical pipes to bang, and some open space.

One feature to note is a sprinkler area that children activate by pushing a button. This caught me off guard at our first visit, but now I know to bring along a towel, or cut the kids off from the water areas enough ahead of time for them to dry out before we leave. On hot summer days though, the water can be wonderful for cooling off.

There is one large covered picnic area that is available for reservation and several other tables that circle the play area. A low fence surrounds the play area and separates it from the tables, although the playground is still visible from the tables. There is also a restroom available.

Matteo's Dream Playground is located in Hillcrest Park at 2050 Olivera Road.

Alpha Phonics, How My Kids Learned to Read

Sticking with the reading theme, since it's time now for Summer Reading Programs, I thought it was past time for a review of the Alpha Phonics reading book. I used Alpha Phonics to teach both my kids to read the summer before they began kindergarten.

Originally, I didn't think I needed a formal reading instruction book. We are big readers in our family. They kids were read to from before birth. Bedtime stories are a ritual, and we read together throughout the daytime as well. Once they knew their letters, and letter sounds, I tried just starting in on some of the very early reader books, like the "Bob Books", and other similar phonics early readers. I believe we were on the third Bob book when I realized that my daughter was not actually reading. She'd been fooling me. She'd look at the pictures, then the first letter or so of the word, and make a good guess. She made it through 2 books perfectly that way. What tripped her up was the word "rag". She read it as "blanket" based on the picture.

That was when I started researching reading programs. So many of them seemed so complicated, with games, and videos, and songs, and. . .oh yes, at last books too. There were some darn pricey ones too. I chose Alpha Phonics in the end because it was simple, and reasonably priced. The Alpha Phonics website offered the first several lessons for free. We used those first, and they went very well. My daughter gained confidence, and since there are no pictures, I knew she could really sound out her words.

The Alpha Phonics book has been everything I wanted in a program for learning to read. Simple, and organized. There is no preparation or extra work I need to do. We just open the book up to where we left off, and work through the next lesson. There are some lessons that are very long in the beginning, and new sounds are repeated over and over for the child to get a good grasp on them. There were usually more than my kids wanted to deal with in a day, so we didn't always do one lesson a day - when we hit those big ones, we just worked thought one page a day instead. We still made great progress, but with less stress.

I still strongly believe that in order to raise kids who love to read, they must live in a house that loves to read. Parents who read to them often, and just as importantly, read for their own pleasure, and let their kids seem them reading do a lot for the child's attitude toward books. But Alpha Phonics has helped us so much too. it made the process of learning to read smooth, natural, and painless. Despite the rather dull appearance of the book, with no flashy colors, and no pictures at all, both of my kids lit up when I pulled it out, ready to work through the next lesson. Although, in all honesty, they both were more resistant in the very beginning, maybe up to around lesson 10 to 15 or so. By then, thought, they had the hang of the program, then knew how it worked, and more importantly, they knew they could do it. It built that sort of confidence in them. It is a program that I would recommend to anyone who wants to learn to read, or to help someone else learn.