On Saturday, the BBC’s education correspondent, Mike Baker, published an article about a ‘redemptive’ literacy strategy, Reading Recovery. A New Zealand import, Reading Recovery is a ‘highly structured intervention strategy for rescuing children who are struggling to take even the first steps towards reading’. Using the scheme, children whose reading abilities are below what they should be, can, in a matter of weeks, raise their reading level enough to put them ‘back on track’. Research just out on the impact of Reading Recovery shows that children on the programme improved at a rate four times faster than those who were not. This evidence of its effectiveness, together with rising concern about the number of primary school-leavers who are unable to read properly, is sparking new debate as to whether the government should invest in the strategy. Whilst very effective, Reading Recovery is also very expensive, costing between £2,000 and £2,500 per child. Though the courses are short, the expense is incurred by the fact that they work on a one-to-one basis between the child and a specially trained teacher. As the BBC article points out, using the programme in schools is something that both the last and present government have considered – and implemented – before. However, both governments ultimately decided not to prioritise the cost of Reading Recovery in their long-term budgets. Yet, high levels of poor literacy amongst children seem to be prompting reconsideration. To not invest in early intervention programmes such as Reading Recovery, as the BBC’s Mike Baker points out, would be a false economy. Rather than waiting until secondary school with proposals such as ‘catch-up classes’, or worst still, never remedying poor literacy, the widespread introduction of Reading Recovery would be very valuable. At the same time, however, we must be careful about being satisfied in the schools system with redemptive methods. Not always, but often, poor reading skills by Year 2 (age 6/7 years old) signify flaws in the Literacy Strategy. And thus, whilst it is good investment to include Reading Recovery in the budget, the underlying need for intervention must be addressed: we need to remember that its requirement may denote a failure in methodology.
Comments (3)
John, you could not be more wrong. As a warrior in the Literacy Wars for some 33 years, I can tell you first hand that even the most responsive teacher employing a wide variety of techniques will sometimes not be able to provide the exact formula for particular children who have made weird and incorrect assumptions (unlike your daughter)about how one reads. These wrong behaviors are corrected very skillfully by Reading Recovery teachers who use a child's solid and good learnings to assist them to make improved habits using three sources of information to unlock each unknown word. You should do yourself a great favor and go to watch one of these lessons. You will have lasting admiration for RR teachers and their superior child observations and pointed instruction. This has been used in my schools in Colorado and Wyoming with great success. This is how we keep from sending kids on who cannot read.
Posted by lynne rerucha | August 14, 2008 4:33 AM
Posted on August 14, 2008 04:33
I have a reading recovery specialist working in my school. I think having a reading recovery specialists to help students who have learned unproductive reading behaviors is a necessity. In a perfect world teachers would teach the proper reading strategies needed for students to be successful readers, however, we all know we don't reside in a perfect world. Students come into our classrooms every day with behaviors that need to be corrected, including reading behaviors. Having a reading recovery specialist to provide extra one-on-one support on top of the interventions I provide in my classroom helps my students improve their reading behaviors much faster than if I was working to correct the behaviors on my own.
Posted by Jennifer | July 17, 2008 7:15 PM
Posted on July 17, 2008 19:15
We wouldn't need "Reading Recovery" if the children were taught properly in the first place.
The catchy title, and the claim that only specially trained teachers can be employed to administer the magic cure is just a cover for the high cost. All this scheme does is the obvious - provide one on one tuition.
Almost anyone could teach a child to read and write on a one to one basis. I remember teaching my daughter to count, to write her alphabet, and some simple words before she entered her infant school, only to be told by her stupid teacher that I shouldn't have done it because this knowledge wasn't compatible with modern teaching methods.
Instead of ignoring little Johnnie or little Julie as they stare out of the window, or in educationspeak " indulge in self directed learning", in a class of 30 out of control children baffled by the failed modern holistic word recognition teaching fad, our mainstream teachers should do their jobs properly at the first attempt.
In the long run it will be cheaper that way.
Posted by John East | November 15, 2006 10:19 PM
Posted on November 15, 2006 22:19