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Matt Romania looks at the innovation and impact of Story Dogs, an Australian charity improving literacy of children through reading support animals.
Helping almost 3,000 children every week, Story Dogs is a reading support program that uses accredited dogs to make reading comfortable (and fun). The charity has seen reading levels increase and confidence soar since launching in 2009.
Janine Sigley and Leah Sheldon founded the charity after hearing about a comprehensive literacy program in the United States. Reading Education Assistance Dogs (or R.E.A.D) is a successful initiative based in Utah, built around the idea of children reading to dogs as part of their elementary school level education.
This concept soon spread from Utah, USA to Murwillumbah, Australia. Both Janine and Leah decided children in Australia would benefit from a reading program focused on the bond created between people and dogs, and a charity would be the vehicle to deliver their program in schools.
Being a dog lover, veterinarian and parent, Dr Claire Stevens is passionate about the human-animal bond: “The non-judgemental and calming nature of dogs can help children relax and overcome challenging emotions and fears around reading.”
As a mum of young boys, Dr Stevens says encouraging children to find the wonder and joy in literacy is really important, especially in the age of the screens. “Seeing kids overcoming tricky words and reading aloud while having fun and learning is a beautiful thing for any parent or educator to see. And what a better way to inspire this learning than through our beloved furry companions - dogs!”
The first step of the Story Dogs program was actually to trial the program in the Australian context, and adjust their approach before broadening their delivery. They first piloted the program in 2009 at their own children’s school, Murwillumbah East Public School.
With most new ideas, there was a level of uncertainty. To the primary school principal’s surprise, Story Dogs was successful in improving reading outcomes with participating students. Positive feedback about the experience came from students and teachers, as well as parents and the broader community. From this pilot, Story Dogs expanded and continue to grow right across the country.
Story Dogs now has two clear strategic objectives - to ensure ‘no child is left behind’ in literacy, and to help make reading fun for children so they become confident lifelong readers.
Janine says Story Dogs has “stayed with the tried-and-true method of learning to read, by listening and sharing stories together” to work towards their strategic objectives broadly. Specifically, each dog team has a support framework for reading session - always with a continued focus on child safety, animal welfare, volunteer support and improved reading outcomes:
This framework allows Story Dogs to use their program and apply it to a variety of contexts and school environments to ensure it’s beneficial to the student - as well as for the teachers and school leaders.
“If a child goes from being a fearful or reluctant reader to looking forward to their reading sessions, our job is done - and this is how the dogs help,” says Janine.
This certainly seems to be the case with the dogs and volunteers receiving constant, positive praise. Part of Story Dog’s strategy that I’m drawn to is the communication framework of their strategic plan. Not only do they make it easy for supporters to help raise awareness, they pride themselves in sharing the positive testimonials (including letters from children, parents and schools) and stories, so their impact isn’t just numbers.
Another innovative part of their communications is their ‘Friends of Story Dogs’ option for authors and other ambassadors to get involved in their mission.
If you’ve been a child (or a parent/carer) in Australia anytime in the last half-century, there’s a good chance you’ve read, listened to or at least seen a copy of Animalia by author Graeme Base. Graeme is a friend of Story Dogs and believes the most important thing reading does for a young mind is engender a sense of empathy (what it would be like to be someone else):
“Empathy is the basic building block of compassion and tolerance - qualities we hold dear in our human communities. Our particularly close relationship with dogs, in which we instinctively sense these same emotions and responses, offers a wonderful way to encourage children to read.”
Since being established, Story Dogs has built confidence, literacy and indeed empathy with 1,013,550 reading sessions, supported by 819, 982 volunteer hours.
Story Dogs makes reading fun, though it takes transparency and governance seriously. Story Dogs is open about its alignment of our major funding streams with core business streams.
In the 2021/2022 financial year, 41% of income was from philanthropic and general donations (used for operations and good governance), 37% of income from dog sponsorship (used for the dog teams delivering the one-on-one sessions), and 22% from school fundraising events (used for volunteer coordinators who support the dog teams).
“We'd like anyone who has contributed to Story Dogs, including our large funders - Emorgo Foundation, Dymocks Children’s Charities, Animal Therapies Limited and Pressroom Philanthropy - for making our program possible,” says Janine.
“Our long-term goal is big and hairy: To have a Story Dog in every primary school in Australia. We have a long way to go, but we’ll give it our best shot.” There are 6,223 primary schools in Australia (ACARA, 2019) and the Story Dogs program is currently in 373 schools (14%).
Dr Stevens encourages everyone to explore the Story Dogs mission to see if there’s a way you can get involved: "Story Dogs help over 2,900 Australian children read every week and we can only hope this number continues to grow as we raise awareness of this fantastic charity."
You can learn more about Story Dogs at https://www.storydogs.org.au
Photo description: A smiling child reads a book to one of Story Dog’s accredited dogs. The child and the dog look calm and relaxed, both outside on a picnic blanket with trees and sunshine in the background. The child’s hair is being moved by a gentle breeze.
Matt Romania
Marcus Gordon
