Introduction: Human-animal interaction research has witnessed a global proliferation of canine-assisted reading programs for young readers. These programs are thought to help children overcome the struggles often associated with reading and to increase children’s reading motivation by providing a non-judgmental and positive reading context (Hall, Gee, & Mills, 2016). However, little is known about how the context of these reading programs can help increase children’s motivation to read, particularly when faced with a challenging reading passage. This study adopted a within-subjects design to explore if the context of reading to a dog versus reading alone is associated with increases in children’s reading motivation and persistence in the context of a challenging reading passage.
Method: We explored reading motivation and persistence among 17 (8 girls; 9 boys) children in grades one to three. Reading outcomes were assessed in two contexts: in the presence of a therapy dog and alone without a therapy dog present. Children completed a modified version of the Intrinsic Motivation Inventory – Reading (IMI-R; Frijters, 2004) to assess reading motivation and took part in structured interviews to assess reading enjoyment. Additionally, children were timed for each of the reading sessions to measure reading persistence.
Findings: The results of paired samples t-test revealed that children scored significantly higher when reading to a dog (RD) versus reading alone (RA) on each of the following outcomes: 1) reading interest (t(16)= -2.27, p = .037, d = .551; RD, M= 28.7, SD= 4.48; RA, M = 25.5, SD= 7.23), 2) reading competence ( t(16)= -2.54, p = .022, d = .615; RD, M= 29.0, SD= 5.93; RA, M= 26.8, SD= 6.27), and 3) total reading time (t(16)= -3.30, p = .005, d = .800); RD, M= 2.65, SD= .209; RA, M = 2.49, SD= 0.274). These preliminary results (analyses are ongoing) suggest that the presence of a dog has a positive impact on children’s reading motivation and persistence in the context of reading a challenging passage. Implications for canine-assisted literacy programs and struggling readers are discussed.