Since 2017, Stephen Gaynor School has welcomed therapy dog Arrow and her owner, Susan Zizmor, to campus every week as part of the R.E.A.D. Therapy Dog program. This longstanding program has provided students with a unique opportunity to strengthen their literacy skills in a supportive and engaging way. This week, NBC Nightly News with Lester Holt: Kids Edition visited Gaynor to profile the program and see how it works firsthand!
R.E.A.D. stands for Reading Education Assistance Dogs and is the children’s literacy program of Intermountain Therapy Animals (ITA). The program is used in schools and libraries across the United States. In New York City, the program is affiliated with New York Therapy Animals. The R.E.A.D. program helps improve children’s reading, communication, and social skills by utilizing registered therapy animals and their human teammates in a calm and relaxing atmosphere.
Gaynor serves students with a strong cognitive profile who often face challenges in the acquisition of reading and writing skills due to dyslexia or other language-based learning differences. Our reading curriculum is grounded in the structured, phonics-based, multisensory Orton-Gillingham approach. We use an individualized and multisensory approach throughout all subject areas, and the Orton-Gillingham approach for reading is a natural fit, since the approach uses sight, hearing, touch, and movement to help students become confident, fluent readers.
At Gaynor, students who need extra reading practice build self-esteem and confidence by reading to Arrow, a patient listener who is calm and non-judgemental. In other words, a perfect reading companion! Reading specialist Kristi Evans highlighted the benefits of the program, explaining, “Reading to a therapy dog allows students to work at their own pace; read at their own pace. It makes the children feel safe and when children feel safe, they feel empowered.” Arrow and Susan went through months of specialized training to become R.E.A.D. certified, and Susan says Arrow looks forward to her visits to Gaynor each week.
The segment on NBC News featured interviews with Nancy George-Michalson, Executive Director of New York Therapy Animals; Susan Zizmor, Arrow’s owner; Reading Specialist Kristi Evans; and several Gaynor students who have been working with Arrow this year.
You can watch the full story on NBC Nightly News with Lester Holt: Kids Edition below, as well as see a few behind-the-scenes photos from the filming!
