WHY HORSES?

HORSES ARE NATURAL TEACHERS

• Horses are sentient beings and are a lot like us

• Horses have distinct personalities and defined social roles within the herd, allowing students to identify and form connections with them

• Horses help us reflect on how we approach relationships, learning, and challenges.

• Because they are prey animals, they have evolved to be extremely sensitive to their environment and react to our body language and cues. They can give very good insight into what the student is experiencing emotionally during a session

• Horses allow for movement in learning

HOW DO HORSES HELP TEACH READING?

Horse Powered Reading helps students externalize their reading difficulties in order to explore and practice new skills or solutions in an emotionally safe space. During a Horse Powered Reading session, the horse becomes the reading material or “book” students need to connect with. Without finding and making some connection with the text, it is easy to drift away from or lose interest in a book. The horse becomes a metaphor for that connection.

Students are allowed to choose their own horse to work with..just as they would choose a book to read. Based on their interaction with the horse, students experience how it feels when a book or text is too hard or too easy. This gives the client a chance to learn to choose a “just right” book.

Seeing what tools are used to connect with the book(horse) and how that connection is made between client and horse, allows facilitators and teachers to use clean questioning to help students discover the importance of connection and allows for the exploration of better ways to do it, through the use of the metaphor. Through this process, the horse creates an opportunity for immediate feedback and experiential learning to take place.