Mtani Helps Children  Read

From courant.com
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For Some Students, Teacher's The Pet
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By RACHEL GOTTLIEB
Courant Staff Writer

February 17, 2005

Kenya Harris is stretched out in the story corner in a
classroom at Annie Fisher School and struggling to sound out
the word "thin." She sticks with it, then finally she gets
it.

After working so hard, no one would blame the 8-year-old
first-grader for feeling trepidation as she turns the page.
Just then her audience, a cocker spaniel named Mtani, puts
an end to the page-turning. He flops out on the book for a
nap.

Kenya is thrilled. After a giggle, she slides the book out
from under Mtani and turns the page with a fresh sense of
optimism and cruises right through the next few pages. Mtani
snuggles close, his blase attitude taking the fright out of
reading.

Mtani and his owner, retired kindergarten teacher Daphne
Wilcox, have been meeting individually with four
first-graders since November to help them improve their reading skills.
The theory is that struggling readers might be embarrassed
to read in front of a class or even a teacher but that the
dog provides a comforting, nonjudgmental audience.

Kindergarten teacher Jennifer Fanning got the idea last
spring when her mother-in-law sent her a picture of a child
reading to a dog that ran in a North Carolina paper. On a
little note, she wrote: "Thought you might get a kick out of
this."

Fanning was thrilled, but not by the novelty of it. "I
said, `Oh, my gosh, we've got to do this in Hartford,'" Fanning
said.

So she spent the summer researching the program, which
started in Utah in 1999 when Intermountain Therapy Animals
launched its Reading Education Assistance Dogs - R.E.A.D. -
program. Since then, the program has caught on in libraries
and schools throughout the country and in Israel, Japan,
Canada and Singapore.

Fanning said she believes that Annie Fisher is the first
school in the state to try the program, run locally under the
name "Tails of Joy." The main idea is for students who are
behind in reading to get some practice and enjoy the
experience. Dogs don't correct or judge - although Wilcox does
coach the readers through tough spots.

It's obvious that the youngsters enjoy sitting with Mtani -
even when he closes his eyes and lies down for a snooze.
Kenya doesn't perceive any disrespect from Mtani when he
appears to be sleeping. She thinks he closes his eyes to help
him concentrate. "He sounds out the words inside his mind.
He likes to listen to people read so he can learn the
words."

Chieyon Wilson-Williams, 6, interprets Mtani's relaxed
stance as proof that he enjoys the stories. He confesses that
he was a little afraid of Mtani when he first met the dog,
but now he trusts that the dog won't bite him.

Chieyon's grandmother, Connie Wilson, who volunteers at the
school, said that Chieyon's sessions with the dog have
helped draw him out of depression brought on by the death of
his baby sister.

"It's helped him a lot," she said. "At home, we see a
change in him. Everything has picked up. He just got very quiet
and now he's just out there."

While Wilcox, of Simsbury, coaches, she uses Mtani to coax
children to try harder - alternately asking students to
sound out or define words for the dog.

Fanning said that teachers were at first skeptical and
worried that the children might be afraid of the dog. But
Wilcox and the dog attended a staff meeting and the teachers
were set at ease. They selected students from their classes to
read to Mtani.

The success of the program might be hard to measure through
test scores.

But if the comments of Elvon Coleman, 7, are any gauge,
then the program is a hit. "I like reading to Mtani because he
always likes seeing me."

A discussion of this story with Courant Staff Writer Rachel
Gottlieb is scheduled to be shown on New England Cable News
each hour today between 9 a.m. and noon.
Copyright 2005, Hartford Courant

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