BaRK a child’s best friend

Wednesday, May 28, 2014

Lecturer’s research gives bite to canine assisted literacy program

Brenton Stacey
Public relations officer
Avondale College of Higher Education
Cooranbong, New South Wales, Australia

The story behind an Avondale lecturer’s first-of-its-kind paper about a canine-assisted literacy program is published today in an inspirational book.

Child reading to dog

Barbara Fisher hopes her study, which features in a new book, will raise awareness of the educational benefits of canine assisted literacy programs. Credit: Lake Mac Libraries.

A study by Barbara Fisher investigated the effectiveness of BaRK (Building Reading Confidence for Kids), which sees a child read one-on-one to a trained therapy dog. The subject of the study: a disengaged nine-year-old called Zack.

Zack would read four stories to a labradoodle called Flash at the Toronto branch of Lake Macquarie City Council’s Lake Mac Libraries each week. After eight weeks, Zack’s reading accuracy improved by 11 months and his reading comprehension by 12 months. “I thought, That’s got to be a one-off,” says Barbara, a senior lecturer in the School of Education. She re-tested Zack 12 months later. “He’d retained all his gains.”

Barbara asked Zack why he found it easier to read to a dog. His response: “I don’t feel intimidated because it’s harder to speak to someone who actually talks back when you make a mistake.”

The location of the program, which is away from home and school, also helps remove peer pressure and stress, says Lac Mac Libraries’ lifelong learning officer Julie Dunn. “The dogs love to listen and provide attention and acceptance without judgement, and their calming nature provides an environment of emotional support.”

Zack and Flash now feature in the book, Dogs that Make a Difference: Inspiring stories of dogs that bring hope, help and healing to people’s lives, which is published today by Penguin Books Australia. Barbara re-tells Zack’s story in a chapter called “A BaRKing good idea.” All royalties from the sale of the book support Delta Society Australia, a not-for-profit organisation providing animal-assisted therapy.

Barbara’s paper, which she wrote with honorary senior research fellow Dr Merle Cozens, is published in the most recent issue of the journal, Literacy Learning: the Middle Years. It is the first in Australia to study from an educational perspective the effectiveness of a canine assisted literacy program.

“Parents and teachers had been telling us that children participating in the program demonstrated improvement in reading fluency, phonics and comprehension,” says Julie. “With Barbara’s research, we now have quantified evidence to show BaRK works on multiple levels.”

Barbara hopes her research will raise awareness of the programs in general. “BaRK gives children who struggle with reading and have become disengaged another alternative to improving their reading skills.”

Launch: Dogs that Make a Difference, Lake Mac Libraries, Toronto branch, Tuesday, August 12, 2014, 10.30 am.

Contact Julie Dunn, lifelong learning officer, Lake Mac Libraries, for more information.