Story Dogs is a nationwide not-for-profit and a registered charity helping children in schools improve their literacy. Our volunteers take dogs into schools to work one on one with children, listening to them read. When children read to a dog in a non-judgmental setting, the children's focus improves, their literacy skills increase and their confidence soars. The accepting, loving nature of dogs gives this program its magic and helps children relax, open up, try harder and have fun while reading to a friendly, calm dog.We currently have 408 volunteers around Australia helping over 2040 children per week. As volunteers we have our dogs assessed by a Story Dog assessor, have training to undertake the role of volunteer and are supported by a local coordinator. We take our calm dog into a local school sourced by the coordinator for one morning reading session a week. This takes about three hours,