R.E.A.D. Program

Our R.E.A.D. Program

We also support young children who are not sick but need a hand in their school work. The statistics are clear. We have a literacy issue in our country. Sixty-eight percent of fourth-grade children in the United States are reading below the proficiency level. Mutts On A Mission has become an affiliate with Intermountain Therapy Animals, based out of Utah, to implement a Reading Education Assistance Dog (R.E.A.D) program right here in the west valley. We are proud to be an affiliate of Intermountain Therapy Animals serving 23 countries with over 5,000 volunteers. We started with one school, Barbara B. Robey Elementary, in Litchfield Park in 2017 and have now expanded the program to Litchfield Elementary, Odyssey Preparatory Academy in Buckeye, and Littleton School in Avondale.

How does R.E.A.D. work?

Each week a R.E.A.D. team goes to the school and works with the same child for some quality one-on-one reading time. The child, who may be struggling with reading for any number of reasons, reads to the dog and receives tutoring from the human part of the team. The benefits of pairing up a team with the same child every week for some individual reading time is astounding. The child reads aloud to the dog (and the human) without fear of judgment if they stumble. Over a short time, the bond that develops between the child and the dog is palpable! And, since dogs don’t judge, the children gain confidence as their reading skills improve.

How do we know it works?

Mutts On A Mission Social media & sharing icons powered by UltimatelySocial Children learn to read with the help of Therapy Dogs Take Me HOME. We work hand in hand with teachers in each school. After each reading session, we debrief with the teacher and discuss how the child did and whether or not they are ready for more. Reading fluency is measured before, during, and after each semester. The teachers were amazed, as were we, at how much these children improved over the first semester! We knew we had to grow our program to reach more children and we continue to do so.

Fox 10 profiled our R.E.A.D. program. Watch it here:

Paws for Reading program at the Goodyear Library. Just another example of how our dogs help children.

Filmed at the Barbara B. Robey School with heartfelt thanks for their support in filming this transformational work we call R.E.A.D. Our videographer was Joseph Mullane, a film school graduate of Grand Canyon University, who spent tireless hours perfecting our story.