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Germany

How Dogs In Germany Are Helping Children Learn To Read

Take your time, sound it out...W-o-o....WOOF!
Take your time, sound it out...W-o-o....WOOF!
Hannes Vollmuth

MUNICH - It is shortly past 10 a.m. in a Munich middle school and Tammy is lying on the floor, muzzle tucked between his paws, stomach rising and falling gently as he breathes in and out, apparently asleep. Occasionally, when Salma leafs through the pages of her book, the dog’s eyes blink open then shut again, but there’s not a peep out of him.

"Paul the panda is lazy," Salma reads out loud. Tammy still doesn’t move. "Edward the squirrel takes a little nap in the tree,” she continues. Now Tammy appears to be deeply asleep.

Every Thursday, Salma runs to her school’s library in Munich’s Haidhausen neighborhood to be with Tammy. She throws a cushion as big as a chair on the floor, and reaches for a book. The dog lies nearby. The girl, who was born in Somalia and is 12-years-old, strokes Tammy. Six months ago she struggled with her reading – getting every word out was a mini-victory. Today she reads without hesitation: "Willi the puppy forgot his bone."

Salma has 15 minutes with Tammy, a Golden Retriever with a yellow coat and a white tummy. During this time, she reads to the dog. Whether Tammy is sleeping, dozing, or awake and listening, it's all the same to Salma. Tammy is a reading tutor. So how does that work?

"A dog doesn’t correct you, it just listens," says Kimberly Grobholz, a woman with grey hair and laugh wrinkles around her eyes. She sits near Tammy, stroking the canine’s ears. Grobholz speaks German with a melodious accent that gives away her American origins. She brought the concept to Germany from the U.S., where there are thousands of dogs that listen as children read to them aloud from a book.

Anybody in this Munich school who goes to read to Tammy on Thursdays either is afraid of reading aloud, has reading difficulties, or doesn’t like books. "Being around the dog relaxes and motivates children," Grobholz says. Relating to the animal is crucial. "The kids lose their fear with Tammy."

International comparisons reveal again and again that the reading abilities of German children are only middling. Among 15-year-olds, 18.5% are weak readers. Fear and shame play a role in this. “When reading begins to take on negative associations, having something positive connected with it can make it seem attractive again,” says reading researcher Cordula Artelt, a professor at the University of Bamberg who holds the chair for Empirical Education Research.

Human happiness hormones

For the children at Munich’s Wörthschule school, the positive reinforcement is Tammy the Golden Retriever. This would come as no surprise to animal therapists who have long known that contact with dogs stimulates human happiness hormones.

Ten children are reading today. They come from Somalia, Macedonia, Turkey and Slovakia and also Germany. Some of them have been going to the “Lesehund” (“reading dog”) for years. In English, the terms reading dog, as well as tutor dog, are used.

"In Germany, tutor dogs are still unknown," says pioneer Grobholz, "but they definitely help children." She started her project in 2008 in Munich but there are now similar projects in a number of German cities including Mainz, Augsburg, Weiden in der Oberpfalz and Bremen. Grobholz sits near the reading kids and very occasionally helps them out, "but not too much, that’s the deal," she says.

The children come to read to Tammy because their teacher has sent them there. "Children who go regularly to read to the tutor dog also read better in class," says German teacher Margreth Außerlechner. Children with reading difficulties usually fall behind in their schoolwork – and then because they are laughed at by the other children, their lack of confidence about reading only gets worse. But with Tammy the children feel more confident. "And they participate more in class, too," says the teacher, scratching Tammy on the ear.

Grobholz would like to set up reading with tutor dogs all over Germany. Before she started taking Tammy to schools, which she does for free, she used to take Tammy to retirement homes on a volunteer basis. Everywhere she took the dog she saw how positively people reacted to it. The dog requires no training, but must be "stress-resistant, calm, and like children."

Tammy is kept on a leash while the children read. In between reading sessions the dog gets a dog treat to eat. However until the gong announces that an hour has passed, the dog remains lying down and doesn’t bark a single time – as usual. It just listens. Or at least that’s the impression he gives.

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Society

Sleep Divorce: The Benefits For Couples In Having Separate Beds

Sleeping separately is often thought to be the beginning of the end for a loving couple. But studies show that having permanently separate beds — if you have the space and means — can actually reinforce the bonds of a relationship.

Image of a woman sleeping in a bed.

A woman sleeping in her bed.

BUENOS AIRES — Couples, it is assumed, sleep together — and sleeping apart is easily taken as a sign of a relationship gone cold. But several recent studies are suggesting, people sleep better alone and "sleep divorce," as the habit is being termed, can benefit both a couple's health and intimacy.

That is, if you have the space for it...

While sleeping in separate beds is seen as unaffectionate and the end of sex, psychologist María Gabriela Simone told Clarín this "is not a fashion, but to do with being able to feel free, and to respect yourself and your partner."

She says the marriage bed originated "in the matrimonial duty of sharing a bed with the aim of having sex to procreate." That, she adds, gradually settled the idea that people "who love each other sleep together."

Is it an imposition then, or an overwhelming preference? Simone says intimacy is one thing, sleeping another.

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