A first grade teacher is using puppies to encourage her students to work on their reading skills. Brooke Hughes has been a first grade teacher for the past 12 years at Hanby Elementary School in Wilmington, Delaware. In an interview with Good Morning America, she explained that she got the idea while fostering puppies during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. Her program now, called Foster Tales Puppy Therapy, launched in January 2023 after she wrote up a proposal once students returned full-time to school.
"I just couldn't stop thinking of all the amazing benefits that the puppies could bring to the actual classroom," she said. "It could bring so much mental health support and reading support, not only for the students, but for the staff too."
"[Hanby Principal Juliet Agresti] let me bring in three puppies for one day to see how it went and it was amazing. It brought so much joy to the school," Brooke continued. "The puppies just lifted everyone's spirits and ever since then, we haven't had many days without puppies in our school."
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Since launching the program, the school has welcomed over 50 foster puppies from Rags 2 Riches Animal Rescue in Garnet Valley, Pennsylvania. "People think that my classroom must be a zoo and straight chaos. But the puppies are actually very calming," she said. "Our productivity is up because [the students] have to get all their work done to have puppy time."
