The Yellowknife Public Library is working with some fuzzy friends to help kids develop their reading skills.
Every Saturday until June 24th, the Yellowknife Public Library is running the TAILS program, in collaboration with the St. John’s Ambulance. The program invites children between the ages of 6 to 12 to come and read stories to a specially trained therapy dog. St. John’s Ambulance goes through a vetting process with each dog to make sure that they will be comfortable being around the children.
Brad Cremasco, one of the librarians, helped to explain the main goal of this program.
“We basically set it up so that kids who are not confident readers, or who need more practice reading can read with a non-judgmental entity, like a dog. So they can read with the dog there, and then the handler will also help them with their reading skills and comprehension along the way.”
Brad said that he is unaware of any specific benefit the dogs would receive from the readings, he explained that he could still tell that they quite enjoy getting all the time and attention from the children as they read.
The Library and St. John’s Ambulance have worked together on this small event for many years now, and Brad is expecting this summer will once again see many young children take part. Any children who would like to participate need only to contact the library by email or phone, and they will then be registered for sometime in either May or June.
