A few passing clouds, otherwise generally clear. Low near 65F. Winds light and variable..
A few passing clouds, otherwise generally clear. Low near 65F. Winds light and variable.
Updated: September 2, 2022 @ 8:35 pm
Ali Perkins founded Rearing2Read at Rouxtano Farm in Hillsborough.
Ali Perkins founded Rearing2Read at Rouxtano Farm in Hillsborough.
It’s always a big plus when you’re able to follow a passion into a career. But what if you have more than one passion and you’re still able to merge them into a business plan? Well, saddle up. You’re about to find out.
Ali Perkins was born and raised in Maine. In her youth, she took up horseback riding and then dressage, and even rode competitively. After she finished college, Perkins went into teaching and taught at a school in Maine for two years, after which she was offered the chance to help start a horse riding and training facility at a farm in Hillsborough.
“I had met the owners in Florida during a training, and they offered me the opportunity to come open this farm with them,” Perkins said. “They needed a trainer to get it started. It was kind of a whim to drop everything (in Maine) and do it, but I think I’ve been here five years now and it’s worked out really well.”
But she never lost sight of her interest in teaching, and had even intended to return to Maine and go back into teaching. But while at the farm she fell in love with one of her co-workers — who was the owners’ son — and she decided to stay in the area.
Also during this time, Perkins learned of a program called Horse Powered Reading that implements a curriculum that uses horses to help students gain confidence and motivation, and helps them overcome reading challenges. The program was created by Dr. Michele Pickel.
“I thought it looked interesting,” Perkins said. “So, I did the facilitator course last winter. The course was online and taught by the program’s creator, who lives in Minnesota. I really loved it.”
Perkins’ mother-in-law offered her farm as a location for the equine-assisted literacy program, and Perkins launched Rearing2Read. The family has spent much of the summer getting Rouxtano Farm ready for its first group of students who will start in September. She said she is excited and ready to get started.
“Each session is a specific age group, so the September group is going to be third to fifth graders, and most of them are coming with some sort of learning disability,” Perkins said. “Not all of them. It’s not required, but I think kids who struggle in school tend to have parents who want them in this program. They come and they tour the farm and I meet them and they meet all the horses, and if they decide they want to do the program, I reach out to their teachers and get a better idea of what they need help with. Then the student will come to the farm two days a week, in the afternoons, after school for six weeks.”
Each week of the program focuses on a different reading skill. For instance, the first week would be decoding, and then the student would move to vocabulary and fluency and then comprehension. In each session, the student is doing different activities with the horses.
“During each individual session, the child with have a team-building exercise, and then they have time to just connect one on one with a horse,” she said. “And then we do whichever activity with the horses we’re doing that day. And then at the end, they have free time to read to the horses, or the other animals at the farm or together.”
Rearing2Read has five horses, a mini-donkey, and a mini-horse that can be paired with students coming out to Rouxtano Farm. The Horse Powered Reading program isn’t horse therapy, but it has many of the horse therapy concepts woven within it. The horses and the kids are matched based on personalities, much as is done in horse therapy.
It’s not uncommon for children who are struggling with reading to build anxiety in performing the task. In some ways, the interaction with the horses enable the student to focus less on the actual act of reading, allowing them to relax, and see the lesson as more of a game.
“One activity I do with the kids is they create an obstacle course that they’re going to have to take the horse through,” Perkins said. “They label the different obstacles — things that have been hard for them with learning to read, and then they have to lead the horse through the obstacle course. If the horse touches one of the obstacles, they have to go back and start again, but the kids they feel like they’re just doing a game with the horses. But by labeling the obstacles and what’s been challenging with reading, that gets us to see a better picture of what they’re struggling with.”
Perkins and her husband now live in Burlington while he attends the Elon University School of Law in Greensboro. She said her plan is for her company to achieve non-profit status, but until then, fees are charged for the program. Thus far, Perkins said, a majority of her students attend on scholarships provided through donations from clients of her dressage lessons.
To learn more about Rearing2Read, go to http://rearing2read.us/
Rouxtano Farm is at 2216 Mandy Lane in Hillsborough.
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