Kids Read More in the Presence of Dogs: New Research | Eastern North Carolina Now

Publisher's note: This post appears here courtesy of the LifeZette, and written by Maureen Mackey.

    Well, this is sweet.

    A new study out of British Columbia is reporting that - while it's harder than ever today to get kids to settle down and develop some healthy reading habits - there now may be a happy and "furry solution" to the problem.

    Researchers from the University of British Columbia in Okanagan found that sitting down with a book "in the presence of a pup" can help motivate our young ones to read more.

    While the study was quite small, the results are interesting.

    "The research team, led by doctoral student Camille Rousseau, studied the reading patterns of 17 children (8 girls, 9 boys) without a dog present, and then again with a dog nearby. Each child was currently enrolled in either the first, second, or third grade at the time of the study," as StudyFinds.org reported.

    "Our study focused on whether a child would be motivated to continue reading longer and persevere through moderately challenging passages when they are accompanied by a dog," doctoral student Rousseau said in a release about the study.

    "Each participating child was selected" based on his or her independent reading skills, noted StudyFinds.org.

    "Before the experiment, each student was tested" to calculate his or her reading acumen and to ensure the children would be provided with appropriate books for their individual skills.

    "However, researchers didn't want the books to be too easy for the children, and chose books slightly harder than each child's reading level."

    There is still much to be learned about why the presence of dogs seemed to motivate the young kids to read more.

    Is it about accountability, encouragement, companionship - or all of the above? And do the dogs that apparently help kids stay more focused on reading have to be specially trained? And if that's the case, what's involved there?

    "Specifically, children confirmed feeling significantly more interested and more competent when reading in the presence (versus absence) of a therapy dog," the study noted.

    "Additionally, participants spent significantly more time reading in the presence of the therapy dog than when they read without the therapy dog present. To the best of our knowledge, this study is the first to use a within-subjects design to explore children's reading motivation and reading persistence during a canine-assisted reading task."

    It'll be interesting to see what comes of further research on "barking for books" - meanwhile, those of us who are lucky enough to have dogs in our lives can appreciate our beloved pets for one more positive quality.