Mtani

Senator Lieberman honored Mtani (pronounced TAHnee – silent M) as one of CT's Best for his work as a Reading Education Assistance Dog for the program Tails of Joy.

The aim of this program is to improve the children's literacy skills through the assistance of Mtani, the cocker spaniel.  Mtani is a Swahili word that means “special friend.” It is the teacher's hope that the special time and reading environment provided to these children will strengthen their reading skills. The theory is that struggling readers might be embarrassed to read in front of a class or even a teacher but that the dog provides a comforting, nonjudgmental audience.

The use of companion animals in education is gaining recognition as a powerful tool to stimulate learning in early childhood education. Research has shown that children with low self-esteem are more often willing to interact with an animal rather than an adult.

Kindergarten teacher Jennifer Faning got the idea to do this when her mother-in-law sent her a picture of a child reading to a dog that ran in a North Carolina paper. Mtani and his owner, retired kindergarten teacher Daphne Wilcox, have been meeting individually with four first-graders since November to help improve their reading skills.

This program started in 1999 in Utah when Intermountain Therapy Animals launched the Reading Education Assistance Dogs – R.E.A.D. program. Since then the program has caught on in libraries and schools throughout the country and in Israel , Japan , Canada and Singapore . They believe that Annie Fisher is the first school in the state to try the program.

Mtani is CT's "Best" friend!