Reading Recovery
ERIC Digest
by Sensenbaugh, Roger
This digest discusses elements of
the Reading Recovery program, describes a typical reading recovery lesson,
addresses issues of the importance of teacher education and teacher role in
those lessons, reviews the existing literature in the ERIC database regarding
the effectiveness of Reading Recovery, and discusses the cost effectiveness of
the program.
INTRODUCTION
In the often contentious world of
beginning reading instruction, marked by the sharply differing opinions of
advocates of intensive phonics instruction and those who support the whole
language approach, Reading Recovery (r) appears to be fairly non-controversial.
Combining extensive teacher education with an emphasis on the development of
phonological awareness and the use of contextual information to assist reading,
Reading Recovery seems to offer the lowest-achieving first-grade children an
effective method of reading and writing instruction. Reading Recovery continues
to generate interest among educators, parents, and administrators. Journal
articles, conference papers, books, research reports on Reading Recovery
continue to be added to the ERIC database. Unofficially, Reading Recovery is
the topic on which this Clearinghouse's User Services specialists currently
receive the most requests for information. Earlier responses by this
Clearinghouse to this continued interest in Reading Recovery include two
annotated bibliographies (Sensenbaugh, 1994; Denner, 1993).
Introduced into the
WHAT IS READING RECOVERY?
Reading Recovery (Clay, 1985)
offers daily half-hour one-on-one tutorial sessions for students who are having
trouble learning to read after one year of formal instruction. The program is
supplementary and short-term, with most students needing from
Reading Recovery is designed to
provide the social interaction that supports the students' ability to work in
their "zone of proximal development"--just beyond their level of
actual development--with a supportive adult who helps them solve problems and
to perform. Clay's theory of learning to read is based on the idea that
children construct cognitive systems to understand the world and language.
These cognitive systems develop as self-extending systems that generate further
learning through the use of multiple sources of information (Clay, 1985; Pinnell, 1994).
A TYPICAL
During the daily half-hour
sessions, children read many small books, some of which are written in a style
close to that of oral language. The books also often use predictable language.
Teachers keep a running record to analyze the child's reading performance.
Children also compose and read their own messages or stories. In addition,
children read slightly more challenging texts that they have not read before.
Teachers provide detailed support for the children as they read these more
difficult texts. Magnetic alphabet letters might be used to assist in analyzing
words.
TEACHER'S ROLE
An essential component of the
Reading Recovery program is the training of the teachers who provide the
tutorial instruction. Reading Recovery teachers learn to observe, analyze, and
interpret the reading and writing behaviors of individual students and to
design and implement an individual program to meet each student's needs. Just
as the Reading Recovery children engage in social interaction with the teacher,
Reading Recovery teachers engage in social interaction with their colleagues
and mentors to construct a view of learning and teaching that supports literacy
learning (Gaffney, 1993).
Pinnell (1994) expanded earlier research on the effectiveness of
Reading Recovery by controlling for a variety of local factors at the school
level and by allowing for a comparative inference in relation to traditional
remedial programs targeting at-risk first-grade children. In addition to
finding that Reading Recovery was the most effective of the five programs
evaluated, Pinnell found that one-on-one instruction
was essential for the lowest-achieving students, and that teacher training was
an important factor in the success of Reading Recovery.
IS READING RECOVERY EFFECTIVE?
Reading Recovery's seemingly
non-controversial nature is nowhere more apparent than in the research base
examining the program's effectiveness. Nearly all of the documents in the ERIC
database find that the program is effective and recommend the program with only
minor reservations. An extended series of studies of the Reading Recovery
program as implemented in Ohio (one of the earliest Reading Recovery programs
in the United States) finds that the program is successful in accelerating 3
out of 4 students up to the level of their peers (Pollock, 1994). Each of the
series of reports ends with the recommendation that the program be continued
and a list of recommendations regarding specific aspects of the program that
could be improved.
Areas of criticism or need for further research include the long-term
effectiveness of the program (Center, 1992), the kind of reading skills to be
emphasized (Chapman, 1991), the program's cost effectiveness (discussed below),
and problems of implementing the program (Pinnell,
1994).
Making the general claim that
Reading Recovery is an effective program is somewhat misleading. Existing
research ranges from case studies of particular teachers or students all the
way up to detailed analyses of state-wide programs. Although "Reading
Recovery" is a registered trademark of the
Glynn (1992), while noting the
clear gains made by Reading Recovery pupils, brings up
another area of concern--how to coordinate Reading Recovery instruction and
regular classroom instruction so that students who are successfully
discontinued from the program can continue to succeed on independent reading
tasks in the very different environment of the regular classroom.
While only a comparatively few
documents in the ERIC database address Reading Recovery's cost effectiveness,
the program's high per-pupil cost (compared to other intervention programs) is
enough to give any administrator or taxpayer pause. As Dyer (1992) points out,
however, the initial high cost is offset by the money saved through (1) not
having to retain low-achieving students in the first grade; (2) not having to
place students in special education or Chapter 1 programs; and (3) not mislabelling a child as "learning disabled" when
in fact the child needed only the brief, supplementary intervention provided by
Reading Recovery.
Dyer concludes (based on a
cost-benefit analysis) that Reading Recovery is an educationally sound and
cost-effective early intervention program for helping children who are at-risk
of early reading failure.
REFERENCES
Center, Yola, et al. (1992). Evaluating the Effectiveness
of Reading Recovery: A Critique. Educational Psychology, 12(3-4), 305-13. [EJ
478 469]
Chapman, James W., and William E. Turner (1991).
"Recovering
Clay, Marie M. (1985). The Early Detection of Reading
Difficulties. Third Edition.
Denner, Michael, Comp. (1993). "Reading Recovery
Research, 1986-1992: Citations and Abstracts from the ERIC Database."
Dyer, Philip C. (1992). "Reading Recovery: A
Cost-Effectiveness and Educational Outcomes Analysis." ERS Spectrum,
10(1), 10-19. [EJ 442 889]
Gaffney, Janet S. (1993). "Reading Recovery (r):
Widening the Scope of Prevention for the Lowest Achieving Readers. Technical
Report No. 580."
Glynn, Ted (1992). "Reading Recovery in Context:
Implementation and Outcome." Educational Psychology, 12(3-4), 249-61. [EJ
478 468]
Pinnell, Gay Su, et al. (1994). "Comparing
Instructional Models for the Literacy Education of High-Risk First
Grades." Reading Research Quarterly, 29(1), 8-39. [EJ 475 731]
Pollock, John S. (1994). "Reading Recovery Program
1992-93. Elementary and Secondary Education Act--Chapter 1. Final Evaluation
Report."
Sensenbaugh, Roger (1994). "Effectiveness of Reading
Recovery Programs." Reading Research and Instruction, 34(1), 73-76. [EJ
494 625]