The following article is a brief story of one of GPK Group’s sponsorship partners, Story Dogs from a local library that utilised their wonderful services.
The Library Discovery Centre is a special place where the Story Dog’s program takes place on Fridays.
Story Dogs (a not-for-profit organisation) was formed in 2009 in Murwillumbah, NSW by Leah Sheldon and Janine Sigley. Currently, Story Dogs assists over 1280 children at 154 schools with 258 volunteer dog teams.
We believe Story Dogs improves children’s and reading and communication skills by employing a powerful method – reading to a dog. But not just any dog. Story Dogs have accredited companion animals who volunteer with their owner/handler as a team, going to schools and libraries.
At St Catherine’s we have Meika, the 6-year old Golden Retriever, who visits our school every Friday. Meika belongs to one of our dedicated staff members, Mrs. Katrina O’Sullivan.
We are thrilled to have Meika working in our school and welcome her to the Library Discovery Centre. We would like to thank her sponsor GPK Group Pty Ltd.
In other Library news, the students are now getting into the routine of returning and borrowing books from our Library. It is important that students bring their Library bag each week to their session. These bags can be purchased at the uniform shop.
This year, the Library will be open at the first half of lunchtime on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. If you have any queries regarding the Library Discovery Centre please don’t hesitate to contact me.
Vanessa Jennings
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For more information on Story Dogs: Leah Sheldon and Janine Sigley formed the non-profit Story Dogs organisation in 2009 in Murwillumbah, NSW. Based on the successful American literacy program, Reading Education Assistance Dogs (R.E.A.D.), which was launched in 1999 in Utah, USA. R.E.A.D. was the first comprehensive literacy program built around the appealing idea of children and young adolescents reading to dogs.
Underpinning the objectives of our program is the knowledge that “students with reading difficulties find themselves in a cycle of almost unrelenting failure that ensures an ever-widening gap between them and fluent readers.” (Konza, 2006. p. 152).
