By David Karas | Correspondent

Whoever said that dogs have no place in the classroom is in for a rude awakening.

For the past seven years, canine companions have been a mainstay of reading and language arts lessons for students in St. Dominic School, Brick, primarily those in the second and sixth grades. Every other week, the furry friends join students to provide an audience for their reading practice sessions.

“The premise is that the dog is very non-judgmental,” said second grade teacher, Kathi Gaspich. “It teaches the children to help each other to read to the dog.”

During the visits, the students will take turns reading to one or more of the dogs who pay them a visit – many of which are therapy dogs or training to be service animals. While the students enjoy the chance to spend time with friendly canines, their teachers say the program builds self-confidence and allows them to practice reading aloud to an audience that is simply unable to be critical of their speaking or comprehension skills.

“It is just such a relaxing, calming beginning of the day,” said Kathleen Cedole, a former second grade teacher who now teaches sixth-grade language arts.

Cedole is responsible for starting the program in the school, and she says the students are better off because of it. “They are much more ready to read out loud, in sixth grade and in second.”

The idea came about on a routine trip to a library in Brick, when Cedole was shocked to witness dogs in between the stacks of books on a Saturday morning.

She spoke with the person coordinating the visit, and learned that it was a routine practice for the canines to show up at the library to provide a friendly, non-judgmental listening ear to kids seeking to practice their oral reading skills.

It was during that discussion that the idea to introduce a similar program in St. Dominic School struck Cedole.

“Reluctant readers would be more open if they were reading to dogs and not to people,” she said.

Ever since, a pair of women – “Miss Maureen” and “Miss Judy,” as they are known to the students – bring a few dogs to the school roughly once every other week, so that students can take turns reading from magazines or leveled readers.

“The children are very eager to read,” Gaspich said, adding that she has had first-grade students approach her asking when they could start to interact with the curious pooches.

The dogs have also become part of the school’s family, a relationship that became even more evident when one of the dogs, a golden retriever, passed away a couple of months ago. Upon hearing of the loss, the children wrote cards for their furry companion to read in heaven.

“They worked their way through the loss of the dog they were really attached to,” she said.

Another second grade teacher, Kaitlyn Molzon, said that her students also look forward to the regular visits from the dogs then stressed how comfortable the students are in the company of such calming creatures.

“It just puts the kids at ease,” she said.