What is Reading Recovery?
• Reading Recovery is a research-based, short-term intervention of one-to-one teaching for the lowest-achieving first graders.
• Reading Recovery, students receive 30-minute lessons each school day for 12 to 20 weeks from a specially trained teacher.
• As soon as students can read and write at grade level and demonstrate that they can continue to achieve, their lessons are discontinued and new students receive individual instruction.
• Reading Recovery has been reconstructed in Spanish as Descubriendo la Lectura.
• It has also been reconstructed in French.
What can Reading Recovery do for my child?
• A key premise of Reading Recovery is that early intervention in first grade is critical. Research shows that children who fall behind in Grade 1 tend to remain below grade level in later school years.
• Early intervention is important because the gap between the lowest- and highest- performing children is narrow in lower grades but widens later in elementary school.
• Numerous studies have examined the effectiveness of Reading Recovery for children with reading difficulties.
• Since 1984 when Reading Recovery began in the United States, about 75% of students with a full series of lessons met the criteria for successful first-grade reading and writing.
• Although all children progress during their Reading Recovery lessons, a few do not make the accelerated progress needed to succeed without extra help. These children may be recommended for additional evaluation.
What happens during Reading Recovery lessons?
Each lesson consists of
- re-reading familiar stories,
- reading a story that was read for the first time the day before,
working with letters and words using magnetic letters,
writing a story,
assembling a cut-up story, and
reading a new book.
• The teacher teaches, demonstrates problem-solving strategies, and provides just enough support to help the child develop effective reading and writing strategies and work as independently as possible.
