Our Bright Spot Reading Buddy Program started in 2013 as an after school program at the Westhampton Elementary School in Westhampton, MA. Today, our special Reading Buddy Program is in thirteen elementary schools and one middle school in Hampden, Hampshire, Franklin, and Worcester counties, running during the academic day.
Special training must be completed for therapy dog teams interested in participating in this highly successful reading program. To participate, a team must be a Bright Spot certified therapy dog team, and the dog must be completely comfortable interacting with children. The team must be available to participate in the program during regular school hours.
With these pre-requisites, a team must then go through our special training in an actual school setting. Depending on the aptitude of the team, training can be completed in two sessions, or as many as needed. Session one is an observation for the volunteer only where a veteran team conducts a meet-and-greet with an entire class, then two to three individual reading sessions with children. The volunteer is then asked to bring his/her dog to the next session where a meet-and-greet is held with the team-in-training. If the dog is comfortable with the children, the team can model two to three one-on-one reading sessions with individual children. If the dog is uncomfortable interacting with children in the group portion, the session is terminated. The veteran volunteer serves as the evaluator. As long as the team shows promise, it may conduct additional sessions to become familiar with the program.
This past week, we completed training for two new reading buddy teams. Both were completely comfortable with the program in two session. Each team will start the Reading Buddy Program in a new school, adding to the number of schools served by this unique way to build confidence in reading.