Man's Best Reading Audience

Grouch Marx supposedly once said, "Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend. Inside a dog, it's too dark to read." One group, however, is proving that a dog can be a powerful incentive to literacy. For ten years now, Intermountain Therapy Animals has operated a program called Reading Education Assistance Dogs (R.E.A.D.), which brings therapy dogs into schools, libraries and other settings so that children can read to them. Dogs, of course, are a wonderful audience for young readers, conferring 100% rapt attention as the child reads aloud.

I urge to go to the organization's website and click on "R.E.A.D. Pictures." It will take to a slide show of children reading to dogs that will make your day.