It’s something that many of us take for granted but for others, it is difficult with 1 in 6 adults in Lima Allen County reading on a third-grade level.
To bring light to the need to improve literacy in our area, the Lima Literacy Council and the Equestrian Therapy Program at Fassett Farm are teaming up to present “Reading to a Horse.” Mocha the horse visited the Literacy Council on Wednesday to promote a new program that they will be offering to people wanting to improve their reading skills.
Sommer Boss is the Program & Volunteer Coordinator at Fassett Farm and says, “We have a partnership for the summer with the Lima Library to bring some groups out once a month for the summer just to see how that goes. And then we are in talks with one or two schools in the region who are interested in bringing some of their students out to participate in that program as well.”
Organizers believe that reading to a horse or any animal can help both children and adults build their reading skills as the animals are not judgmental and have a calming effect to achieve the goal of literacy.
Ken Blanchard with the Lima Literacy Council adds, “We don’t ask anybody why they can’t read or what happened we just say why do you want to learn to read. What are your goals, what do you want to learn? And the goals are all different.”
Blanchard says those goals can be that they want; to read to their grandchildren, get a better job, and to read the Bible.
