MOUNTAIN HOME AIR FORCE BASE, Idaho -- Mountain Home Air Force Base, Idaho - The second grade classes at Stephensen Elementary School received a surprise April 2 when a working dog from the Mountain Home Police Department visited them as part of the school district's "Reading with Ruffy" program.

The program is a second grade Mountain Home School District initiative started last year by Sherri Ybarra, the Idaho Superintendent of Public Instruction, in an effort to raise the reading scores of children grades K-3. The program on base aims to help the children of the Gunfighter community get excited about reading and learning.

"I actually had seen it before where they used real dogs in the program," Ybarra said. "What I did was replicate it and just made it school-friendly...we had the community step up to the plate and donate the dogs, and we just started traveling."

Students briefly met with Ybarra before being introduced to the main attraction; "Ruffy," or Jake, the three-year-old police dog and his handler, Detective Kent Ogaard.

Phil McCluskey, principal of Stephensen Elementary, then led the wide-eyed students through a "Reading with Ruffy." Much to the children's dismay and "Ruffy's" confusion, McCluskey stopped halfway through.

"You stop in the middle of the story and they want to figure out what happened to the rest of it," Ogaard said. "It motivates them to keep reading."

The student's disappointment over the cliff hanger soon dissipated when they were told they would be given their own stuffed "Ruffy" dog, provided they read the end of the book to their own "Ruffy" and kept reading to it every night.

"Reading with Ruffy" and similar reading incentive programs showed an increase in last year's student scores when taking the Idaho Reading Test, an assessment given to children grades K-3. Idaho currently ranks 46th in the nation for overall education according to the January 2015 Education Week Report.

"Studies show that after third grade, that reading gap is likely not to close," Ybarra said. "So we targeted second grade...last year, the test scores increased by a good percentage."

The "Reading with Ruffy" program has been introduced to all of the elementary schools in the MHSD. Stephensen Elementary has also introduced several additional reading incentives in order to help with the students' learning and development.

Pending the program's outcome, the Idaho State Department of Education is looking to replicate "Reading with Ruffy" all over the state.

"The whole idea is just trying to inspire [children] to do more than what they're doing right now," McCluskey said. "If by having the dog or having the pet does that, then great!"