Education “experts” have determined that children reading to dogs is a good thing.
Boston Talk’s Michael Graham has some different thoughts than the experts.
Update: Though not related to 4-legged creatures, but still on the general theme of idiotic initiatives in education, comes this story out of Britain: Best friends banned at some schools
Actually, getting kids to read to critters is an excellent way to get very young ones started and comfortable with reading. My daughter started reading to her cats and dolls when she was four and grew up to be a very well written and well read young lady.
It doesn’t happen often, but sometimes those pooch screwing public school teachers get one right.
There’s something in Maclean’s this week too bitching about overbred purebreds. (I think; I just read a cover blurb and not the whole article.)
I say this sounds fine, even a clever strategy for improving the skills of reluctant readers. Dogs, after all, will never judge you. So long as this does not cause any theological confusion for dyslexic pupils … Just sayin’.
I sorta agree with Osh. As long as this is privately funded I’m ok with kids practicing their reading outloud.
As an Englishman who has never had a “best friend”, I guess this is directed t Gurls. It certainly is vacuous.
Not allowing best friends is to prepare the little darlings for when they are sent to the re-education camps,in their burkhas,without their Jooooo pals.So thoughtful of the socialists.
Luckily,I figure most kids will tell the “teachers” where to stick it.(just what is the commie word for “teacher”??)
I’d have thought that Liberal Progressive teachers would absolutely love having “Best Friends”.
All the sweeter when they lie, cheat, and stab them in the back.
When all is said & done. Educ-rates use your children as guinea pigs for every cockamamie idea they can think up. For more funding as well to break the system that people have used for thousands of years. Because they deep down think all human experience means nothing in the light of Marxist thought. They tends to be perverts too. Hence the forcing of 7 year olds to learn butt sex. Kids who don’t even know what death is yet. Think how they are now forcing kids not to have best friends anymore. Collectivism is their cause. No matter it goes against human nature.
Education is not to improve the knowledge of children anymore, its now socialist conditioning with reading, writing, math as a sideline. With the added benefit of an over paid School Administration in with its unions, bending young minds to even ignore their parents, instilling a horror even of religion for social fads. They say themselves their co-parents, parents are just the facilitators of commodities, while these monsters shape the minds of youth.
Parents are the negative factor in the minds of these folks.
Home school if possible, or a private or charter school.
Ignore these communist Union driven GLBT addicts.
When all is said & done. Educrates use your children as guinea pigs for every crazy idea they can think up. For more funding as well to break the system that people have used for thousands of years. Because they deep down think all human experience means nothing in the light of Marxist thought. They tends to be perverts too. Hence the forcing of 7 year olds to learn the GLBT agenda. Kids who don’t even know what death is yet. Think how they are now forcing kids not to have best friends anymore. Collectivism is their cause. No matter it goes against human nature.
Education is not to improve the knowledge of children anymore, its now socialist conditioning with reading, writing, math as a sideline. With the added benefit of an over paid School Administration in with its unions, bending young minds to even ignore their parents, instilling a horror even of religion for social fads. They say themselves their co-parents, parents are just the facilitators of commodities, while these monsters shape the minds of youth.
Parents are the negative factor in the minds of these folks.
Home school if possible, or a private or charter school.
Ignore these communist Union driven GLBT addicts.
I’ve read a lot of books to my Collie. He particularly enjoyed Shakespeare’s ‘Tempest’ and the ‘Merchant of Venice.’
I read newspapers to him too, but he doesn’t like the Toronto Star or the Globe and Mail.
When I read Newton’s Principia Mathematica, he looked a little puzzled. Maybe he’s not as smart as I thought. He still can’t bark his correct age.
One’s best friend is the State! I can’t imagine teaching children anything else!
And this is the Nation that established the greatest Empire in history.
I read to my Border collie when I was young,but quit when he constantly corrected me. Friends who had Poodles never experienc3ed the same problem.
I suppose it’s the British/French thing.
Whatever you do, don’t feed the dogs any peanuts or peanut butter sandwiches.
One of the little things that bared translation of the ancient Sumarian clay tablets was the assumption that it was a hyroglyfic…and they had no Rosetta Stone. Then one day an eccentric British academic had a hunch that the symbols sort of/vaguely resembled latin script.
He jumped to the conclusion that this was a phonetic alphabet, an ancestor of the Phonesian
alphabet and with the assistance of a linguist found one tablet was a part of the epic of Gilgamesh.
The moral of this is that we have been reading phonetic alphabets for 5-6 millenia, using phonics, now all a sudden some credentialed drone assumes that because we read by means of sight reading…that is the way to teach reading…..the result a generation or so of illiterates…including the “teachers”.
I suspect the supporters of this “no best friends” nonsense…have no friends…but lotsa enemies.
Just listened to that obnoxious radio host for a full 2 minutes, no idea why I would subject myself to such torture.
THE PARTY is your father.
THE PARTY is your mother.
THE PARTY is your best friend.
ALL COLLECTIVELY HAIL THE GLORIOUS PARTY.
.
Phonics works. Whole language doesn’t work nearly as well. Reading to a dog without anyone to assist you with developing your reading skills is nuts. The dog may be happy but when you eventually read to someone who is actually literate and they don’t know what the hell you’re talking about it might be a tad late. This is likely to happen in high school the way things are going now. Or university.
I think it’s a good idea for some dyslexics, but certainly not for whole classrooms. Those dogs can’t be worse than many of the teachers I’ve had.
Oh give me a break.
Because of my size, occupation and experiences/reputation, I always recognized that my appearance at a parent-teacher meeting was intimidating. Fine. I accepted that, and did my very best to make my kids’ teachers feel at ease.
But when my son was about 13, I brought to the attention of his teacher that she had given him an “A” for an essay that was essentially incoherent, had numerous grammatical errors as well as spelling errors.
Her response: “we’re just looking for insight and feelings…the grammar and spelling will come later”.
Well, not surprisingly, the grammer and spelling DIDN’T come. So goes our public education system.
So I have spent a few years tutoring my son, who now runs a successful business, concerning basic math and basic communications skills.
I am more than a little pi$$ed off.
Everytime I try to read the paper to my dog she craps on it…
Oh wait, that only happens when I try to read the Toronto Star to her.
Who knew she was so smart!
My Border Collie is smarter than most in the school system…I swear he knows exactly what I am saying,and he LOVES to talk back to me.
Kid’s don’t need friends. Who needs friends when you can have camrades?
Most dogs think their “owners” are nuts anyway.
comrades*
This is a programme run in Canada by St. John Ambulance as a community service, ie., no tax dollars, as “Readng Tails’. I have been involved in it for more than two years and, contrary to the obnoxious radio host, the child is not alone with the dog, but with the dog and handler (who is also criminal record checked and evaluated). The dogs are specially evaluated for their calm attentive manners and the kids build confidence reading. The handler can assist when things bog down or assistance is clearly needed. It is very popular at elementary schools (three where I live) with more kids eager to read than we have dogs available. The kids start to write stories for and about the dogs (shades of Lassie and Rin Tin Tin) and build their literacy skills. All told, it is highly successful and does not warrant the mockery the radio host levelled at it.
Aviator
I can see merit to what you describe but the programme the radio host mocked does not have a kid-dog-handler setup…but just a kid-dog setup….that was clearly established by his enquiries to the facilitators/supporters he interviewed guests and callers.
There have also been programme where senior citizens have gone into schools to hear kids read….which had good results.
That’s a wonderful tale 🙂
There have been dogs allowed in libraries for children with developmental or behavioral problems. They have had a calming effect on kids. Some students need extra help with reading/diction and feel better reading in a non-classroom setting.
However, if anything must be done, it must be done properly. Students need to be evaluated. Students also need proper encouragement and guidance. Put a kid in a classroom where he can’t fail, it’s no wonder so many people have reading difficulties.
Just my thoughts.
Rather than pairing kids with dogs, how about pairing them with senior citizens? Where I live there are about as many seniors residences or nursing homes as there are elementary schools. Why not pair up Grade 1 classrooms with a group of seniors for a half day a week? Suppose a Grade 1 class goes to a nursing home and is broken up into groups of 2 or three students each, who then get grouped with 2 or three senior citizens. The kids get help learning to read, the seniors tell their stories to the kids. There are some pitfalls to watch out for of course, but it looks like a win-win to me.
Ed Minchau – Most of our dog handlers are senior citizens! That includes retired school teachers. The main seniors’ care facility also has a “Grandbuddies Programme” pairing students with ‘shut-in’ residents. Hey, I live in a very elderly community with six seniors’ residences, your thoughts are great but we’ve implemented most of them 😉 Thanks anyway.
As long as kids read it doesn’t matter if they read to a bush. Far too many graduate grade 12 and can’t read , write or do basic math. I would support anything that involves reading at a early age. When my kids were small we always gave them a choice at bedtime. Lights out or they could read until they fell asleep. Worked wonders in that they both became avid readers. No TV or video games allowed in the bedroom. Still holds true today although they are grown/gone and now have e readers. The wife and I still like the feel of a real book. We have yet to see a movie that was as good as the book. Peter Benchleys book “Jaws” probably came the closest for me.
Best friends banned at some schools
Not surprising since the “State” is jealous of the loyalty accorded a best friend.
That said, reading aloud is a practice which aids clear thinking and developes skills needed for public speaking/standing up for your ideas.
It’s a very good idea.
Geeze what does it take to get a comment through these days?
Ed: If you pair the kids with seniors, and the seniors die, that’s worse than breaking up with a best friend. You need to read *all* the links.
I’m for reading to the dog/cat/dolls at home. I think it is brilliant idea. There’s a whole series of adult books call the “The Cat Who….” where the rich, successful, cerebral, central character reads to his cats every day.
But I’m not sure the limited time in school is when children should be reading unsupervised. I know my son would likely have not made full use of the time reading. He might have taught the dog tricks, but reading? Not likely. (He reads voraciously now at 23 but didn’t start until age 23 when he got a Kindle – the e-ink seems to not trigger his dyslexia.)
As for the best friends story… that’s total rubbish. I’m now busy teaching consequences to a 40+ year old who managed to make it through life without learning any. My life would be a lot easier if I could just say, “This is like when this (bad thing) happened to you, how did you cope then?”
Childhood is for learning about life, all the glory *and* gory bits and learning that one can survive because one is strong. That message won’t get through at all if we don’t allow relationships to develop and then fail.
Two years ago my best friend plus three other close friends all moved away within 3 months of each other and I was devastated. I still miss them lots but having gone through the loss throughout my life, I know that this isn’t a life-ending disaster but just a stage. When I get older, my friends will be dying off, not moving away. That’s life. The lessons kids learn when young will continue to serve them their whole lives.
It’s a great program. Kids who are shy, who are not good at reading and who need practice spend time reading out loud to a friendly pet. The practice makes them better readers and reading out loud, even to a dog, gives them confidence.
sst up a book on each side of the kid on a music stand. place dogs in front of the kid, dogs make a good audience as they appear to be smiling , they mostly nod up and down in agreement and they slobber over everything you say. have the kid read prepared speeches, the dogs wont know if they pronounce corps as corpes or the difference between oil production or oil capacity . they will just be happy if you are putting a roof over thier head and providing free food or free car rides.
the kid is on the way to be POTUS
Sammy a border collie is born with the IQ of a five year old and most breeds have the IQ of a two year old. They are the only breed in existance that is still genetically connected to the wolf. They are also prone to obessive compulsive disorder, why do I know this I almost adopted one recently but realised I didn’t have what it took to exercise it five hours aday.
Reading to dogs is good for kids with low self esteem.
Having four legged educators/companions/best friends has proven to be beneficial to both man and beast. Lassie & Timmy, Rusty & Rin Tin Tin, a boy and his dog (or girl & cat for that matter) used to be part of growing up. Critters will never criticize or correct and are non-judgmental. they give attention and even feedback that an i-pad or PS/3 can’t match.
I’ve seen more than one child turn into a mute after being corrected a dozen times in the first paragraph that they are trying to read aloud to an adult.
Teaching children not to develop close and individual friendships sounds like a great idea for the great socialist utopia that lies ahead.
-close friends may have a detrimental effect on your beliefs which is more easily prevented in a world of group think.
-it’s easier to spy and report on unacceptable thoughts in a group dynamic.
-it teaches the young that individuality is bad and group think is good.
I could go on but I’m sure you get the idea. All praise to the new socialism and world government to come. Won’t we all be happier when all individuality is eliminated from the world. Those of you with copies of Brave New World and 1984 hide them, the Montags of the new world order will soon be at your door to take them.