Pairing Animals With Students

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What is the PAWS Program? The PAWS Program promotes student success by “Pairing Animals With Students.” The PAWS Program uses the natural bond between children and animals to promote learning. Students increase their literacy, vocabulary, and communication skills while reading with a therapy dog team, consisting of a certified therapy dog and a trained volunteer. Objectives The PAWS Program has cognitive, social, and emotional objectives. The cognitive objectives are to enhance reading fluency, increase vocabulary, and improve comprehension. The social objectives are for the students to gain an awareness of their impact on the world and increase their respect and value for life. The emotional objectives are for the students to have an improved attitude about learning and increased self-confidence and self-worth. How does it work??? PAWS improves student learning by utilizing the bond between children and animals to create a learning environment that is engaging, fun, relevant, and non-threatening. The benefits of the human-animal bond have been well documented. When children interact with therapy dogs their blood pressure naturally lowers creating a physiological mindset that is open to learning. Pairing this phenomenon with students’ excitement, engagement, and enthusiasm that comes with having dogs in the learning environment is how this program works.