Reading Recovery

The Reading Recovery (RR) program is an early intervention program designed to help first-grade children who are having difficulty learning to read and write. Developed in 1976 in New Zealand and introduced in the United States in 1984, the program has three main components. The first is a diagnostic survey, which is used in conjunction with teacher evaluations to identify at-risk children. The second is a tutoring session. Each child works with a specially trained teacher for 30 minutes each day until the student's reading performance level reaches the average level of his or her class. Once students reach this level, they are "discontinued" from the program, typically after 12 to 20 weeks. The third component is the teacher and teacher leader training. The year-long training focuses on analyzing children's reading and writing behaviors and relating those behaviors to more general theories of literacy and learning. Reading Recovery is also available in a Spanish version, known as Descubriendo la Lectura.

The goal of this program is to help children who are having difficulty learning to read and write.

Pinnell (1989) found that in the full Ohio program

- RR children from program classrooms scored significantly better than comparison children on all six diagnostic measures
- on the text reading measures, RR children scored significantly higher than control children (19.70 compared to 16.71 out of 26 levels) two years after the program ended.

Pinnell et al. (1994) found that

- compared with the control group, Reading Recovery students had significantly higher scores on the February dictation and text reading-level assessments.
- compared with the control group, Reading Recovery students had a text reading-level assessment that was 0.75 levels (out of 26) higher the following October.
- none of the groups showed significant differences on the Gates-MacGinitie Reading Test given in May.