Do you know a child who struggles with reading? Socio-emotional issues, ADHD, anxiety, depression, and other mental health concerns often get in the way of student learning.
Stay tuned for a new program coming to The Mane Intent: Horse Powered Reading® . The Mane Intent’s founder Jennifer Garland, Registered Psychotherapist (Qualifying) is enrolled in a Horse Powered Reading® facilitator training program this fall. Our intent is to bring this innovative approach to experiential learning to our community, giving students the tools they need to be successful readers.
This program, now used around the world, was developed by Michele Pickel, PhD, in 2012 as an experiential strategy to help struggling readers not only learn missing reading skills, but also assist them in overcoming the social-emotional challenges interfering with their learning.
According to Horse Powered Reading®’s web site, the program helps children:
- Increase confidence
- Promote self-efficacy
- Foster Connections
- Learn valuable reading skills
- Carry new skills into the regular classroom.
Horse Powered Reading® integrates socio-emotional learning with academics; allowing students to see and experience reading with their entire mind, body and emotions by creating metaphors for the skills involved in reading. Students interact with the horses from the ground, while using toys and props to identify obstacles and learn five critical reading skills: phonemic awareness, decoding, vocabulary, fluency, and comprehension.
During session, students are given the opportunity to:
Identify: Issues affecting learning are identified and made visible by the client, through the use of obstacles (toys and props), which symbolize stumbling blocks that get in the way of understanding.
Experience: Memory retention and recall improve dramatically when movement anchors learning. Issues getting in the way of academic and social emotional growth are addressed by our expert team in the moment.
Connect: Students are invited to choose their own horse to work with, just as they would choose a book to read. Students are then given an opportunity to connect with their chosen ‘book’.
Reflect: Sessions provide students a chance to reflect on what they are experiencing and provide an opportunity to create new patterns of learning in a supported environment.
