Reading aloud in class is a pleasure for some pupils but an agonizing, humiliating experience for many.  Of course, those who enjoy it are already good readers, but for those struggling to become literate, it can cause them to abandon their efforts, if mortified in front of their peers regularly.
Even one to one, kids can feel constantly judged and made to feel stupid when learning how to read fluently, no matter how patient and sensitive the teacher is.

There was a television news report some months ago, about a scheme that was tested in some primary schools in the north of England.  This scheme involved getting poor readers in school to read to dogs, i.e.one dog to one reader, and adults out of sight.  Naturally, the dogs chosen for this experiment had docile dispositions and were trained to sit or lie and listen to the reader - i.e. look at the reader, and 'listen' to the story.

What happened ?  Surprise! Surprise!  All the children involved improved their reading ability, in some cases substantially.  What sounded like a crazy idea works, and for a good reason - the readers do not feel judged by a dog and they don't fear being corrected all the time.  Most young children believe that the dog is actually listening to the story and enjoying it, so they want to read more.

One little boy said: "I looked up all the interesting things about dogs in the Guinness Book of Records, and told Murphy them.  I think he was very interested, at least he looked as if he was."

I recommend that all primary schools adopt this scheme, depending on the availability of dogs, because there is no shortage of children who need such a scheme.

Families with a dog, or a perhaps with a neighbour's dog, should try this out on their young ones if they are losing their confidence as readers.