Seven-year-old Drayden Nyambo looked up from his reading to make sure his audience was still paying attention.
“Hey, this kind of looks like you,” he said, pointing to the white puppy on the cover of his picture book.
Zavya, a 5-year-old Great Pyrenees therapy dog, blinked in response.
Drayden attends Camp BGS – short for “Becoming Great Scholars” – at Broken Ground School in Concord. School staff worked with Pope Memorial SCPA, the Concord-Merrimack County animal shelter, to design the three-week summer program, which aims to make reading more fun for kids who need a little extra practice.
Once a week, campers read to animals – usually cats, dogs and bunnies, and there’s been talk of a ferret making an appearance at some point. Jane Dodson, the school’s reading specialist and coordinator of the summer literacy camp, said everything was planned with one goal in mind: to put an exciting twist on the literary experience.
“With anything, if it’s hard, you don’t necessarily want to do it,” she said. “But the only way you get better at it is through practice. I think having the animals gives them the encouragement to do what they need to do to become better readers.”
Every Thursday, volunteers from the SCPA’s Reading Tails Program come to the school, bringing their trained pet therapy dogs. Campers read their book of choice – the one they’d been practicing during sessions leading up to the visit – to the dog and its owner.
At the same time, some of the students make a trip over to the shelter to read to the animals up for adoption.
“There are some sort of shy, timid animals in the corner – they aren’t always noticed by people looking to adopt,” Dodson said.
So the kids sit beside them and read. And as the animals get comfortable with the sound of a human voice, sometimes they come a little closer.
“I think most of the bunnies liked hearing us read,” said Elizabeth Downing, a rising third grader who read to Blacky the bunny. “One of them was flopping his ear, like he was listening.”
This is what motivates students the most – the feeling that their reading is making a difference, Dodson said.
“They’re helping the animals, and they’re helping themselves as well,” she said.
The camp consists of students going into third, fourth and fifth grade. It’s an invitation-only program, Dodson said, for students who receive reading support during the school year.
Elizabeth said she liked camp better than school.
“Usually we have to do math, and that’s boring,” she said. “I mostly love to do reading and writing.”
“My book was really long for a third grader,” she added. “I think that’s why the bunnies started getting bored and going back to their cage.”
Lindsey Elefante, a third-grade teacher at Broken Ground, said the program is all about building confidence.
“They’re reading to an audience that’s fun and that they know won’t judge them,” she said. “It helps keep the stamina up before school starts.”
Some of Broken Ground students are new Americans, Elefante said, so the program can help in additional ways.
“Oftentimes, where they’re from, animals are wild, not pets, and not always friendly,” she said. “This can help them feel more comfortable around cats and dogs and other pets.”
The rest of the week, students practice their reading through a number of other games and activities. They still get to see animals sometimes, when Dodson and Elefante and other teachers – bring their pets to school.
Lori Taylor, interim executive director at the SCPA, said the program really does benefit both parties – it’s good for the animals to socialize, and the kids always learn a lot.
“There’s a handful that never want to leave,” she said. “It’s really remarkable how much more they seem to want to come back and read.”
The shelter generally has a high adoption rate, Taylor added, citing 100 to 120 adoptions each month. This camp may be able to help even more.
“We just adore it,” she added. “It’s a whole bunch of education and fun all wrapped into one.”
Dodson said she hopes the program can continue during the school year. She plans to try and set something up with the shelter so students and their parents can sign up for time slots to read to animals.
Eight-year-old Logan Deschenes said he hopes to keep reading to the animals. He might even practice sometime by reading to his cats at home.
“But they’re not as good at listening,” he said, as he petted TeeTonka the dog.
(Katie Galioto can be reached at 369-3302, kgalioto@cmonitor.com or on Twitter @katiegalioto.)