Baby lambs are attentive audience for young readers
By ERIC SEIVERLING
eseiverling@yourmvi.com
Students at California Area Elementary School had the undivided attention of a very young audience for reading classes this week.
Still in diapers and craving bottles of milk, the students’ reading companions ranged in age from four days to two weeks old.
And they were all born in a barn.
Thinking outside the box for ways to improve students’ literacy, the elementary school brought real baby female lambs into the classrooms. Students in kindergarten through fourth grade read books to the animals and quickly bonded with their new friends as part of the school’s “Let me read to ewe” program.
The lambs made their first appearance in the school Wednesday and will be there until Monday.
School principal Rachel Nagy said the lambs represent more than a cute cuddle buddy for the students.
“There’s a lot of research pointing to students being more comfortable with reading to an inanimate object, such as stuffed animals or live animals because those things can’t criticize,” said Nagy, who is also the district’s supervisor of special education. “Students have embraced it so much. We always tell our students you need to read at home. Even 20 minutes makes such an impact.”
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