UK Government unaccountable when Reading Recovery rolled-out

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debbie
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UK Government unaccountable when Reading Recovery rolled-out

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This parliamentary paper makes it very clear that the previous UK government's decision to roll-out and fund Reading Recovery for 'wave 3 intervention' was neither advisable nor accountable.


http://www.publications.parliament.uk/p ... 4/4405.htm

The question remains, however, as to what happened following this Science and Technology select committee inquiry.

The bottom line is that Reading Recovery methods are not in line with the overarching conclusions of research on reading about the inadvisability of 'multi-cueing reading strategies' which are potentially very damaging to learners.

The content and method of Reading Recovery and persistent uptake and promotion - indeed funding - by officials across the world give the teaching profession completely contradictory messages about how children should be taught to read - and how the weakest or slowest-to-learn children should be taught to read.

It really is a scandal and this scenario goes on and on....

Our expectations of the evidence base.

13. The effectiveness of the Government's policy for ensuring that no children are "left behind" rests on a number of factors. We looked at two: the Government's decision to prioritise literacy in education, particularly the decision to focus on tackling literacy interventions early in school; and the Government's decision to use Reading Recovery.
32. Estimating the cost of literacy difficulties is clearly not easy to do, but we believe that that should not stop researchers from making the best estimates they can. We were impressed by the KPMG Foundation and Every Child a Reader Trust's efforts. While the figures quoted are unlikely to be correct, they clearly show that there is a substantial cost associated with literacy difficulties. Spending money on literacy interventions is a cost effective thing to do. The Government's position that early literacy interventions are an investment that saves money in the long run is evidence-based.
34. Given the large range of options, we asked the Government what other kinds of interventions were considered before the decision was taken to make Reading Recovery the bedrock of the Every Child a Reader programme. Jennifer Chew, a retired English teacher, summarised the Government's response to the Committee's question about the cost effectiveness of different literacy interventions:

Other literacy interventions are available which are cheaper than Reading Recovery, which are more consistent with Wave 1 teaching, and which arguably produce better results […] If the government did consider alternatives before providing funding for Reading Recovery, it should be able to say which the alternatives were, how they were investigated, and what evidence led to the conclusion that they were less cost-effective than Reading Recovery.[30]

35. In oral evidence, we asked Ms Johnson and Ms Willis what alternative interventions were considered. Ms Johnson told us she did not know the answer,[31] and Ms Willis pointed us to Professor Brooks 2002 review.[32] We asked for a supplementary memorandum from the Government on this point. The Government responded:

Interventions other than Reading Recovery we considered

The choice of Reading Recovery as the core intervention of the ECAR programme was made during the pilot phase led by the Every Child A Chance Trust. The Department saw no reason to change this when taking on the programme for national roll-out.[33]

36. In other words, the Government did not formally consider any other kind of intervention.
37. Ms Willis is right to acknowledge the need to compare Reading Recovery with alternative interventions. We conclude that, whilst there was evidence to support early intervention, the Government should not have reached the point of a national roll-out of Reading Recovery without making cost-benefit comparisons with other interventions.
44. Ms Willis stated that the Government has accepted the United States What Works Clearinghouse report as supporting the effectiveness of the Reading Recovery programme, but was unaware of evidence from Mary Reynolds et al in the International Journal of Disability, Development and Education, which contradicts this work and concludes other methods would probably work better.[48]

45. The Government should be careful when selecting evidence in support of educational programmes that have changed over time. Reading Recovery today differs from its 1980s and 1990s ancestors. Evidence used to support a national rollout of Reading Recovery should be up-to-date and relevant to the UK. The Government's decision to roll out Reading Recovery nationally is not based on the best quality, sound evidence.
55. But we are where we are. The Government is rolling out Every Child a Reader nationally. However, we do not consider this a reason to abandon further research. Reading Recovery is an expensive component of the ECaR programme and if there is an equally effective but cheaper alternative, it should be sought out. Research in this area should be ongoing, not stop when the Government decides to roll out a particular programme.

We recommend that the Government identify some promising alternatives to Reading Recovery and commission a large randomised controlled trial to identify the most effective and cost-effective early literacy intervention.
My impression is that there are many cheaper, clone-like 'alternatives' to Reading Recovery - and yet is this the kind of 'alternative' that we should be looking at considering that Reading Recovery is based on multi-cueing whole language strategies - contrary to the recommendations of research on reading?

So, this may be such a 'clone' as it mentions that it was inspired by the well-known Reading Recovery - it's effect size is not large as is claimed:

http://educationendowmentfoundation.org ... n-reading/
Last edited by debbie on Tue Aug 12, 2014 1:36 pm, edited 5 times in total.
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Post by debbie »

The report continues:

AN EMPHASIS ON PHONICS?

56. We have one final concern. The teaching of systematic phonics (see box below) became a requirement by National Curriculum Order in 2007.[65] But, according to Dr Singleton, Senior Research Fellow at the University of Hull, Reading Recovery is "a pedagogical sibling to the 'whole-language' theory of reading, which maintains that reading skills arise naturally out of frequent encounters with interesting and absorbing reading materials".[66] This view of learning has been "increasingly contested" said Dr Singleton in his 2009 review of the evidence,[67] and over time the accumulating evidence on the benefits of systematic phonics work has influenced the way in which Reading Recovery is delivered.[68] Despite this trend, Dr Singleton concludes that:
Phonics
Sir Jim Rose, in his 2006 report on the teaching of early reading, quotes Linnea Ehri:

Phonics is a method of instruction that teaches students correspondences between graphemes in written language and phonemes in spoken language and how to use these correspondences to read and spell words. Phonics instruction is systematic when all the major grapheme-phoneme correspondences are taught and they are covered in a clearly defined sequence.[69]
— Synthetic phonics: readers are taught to break down words into their constituent parts and work out how to pronounce words for themselves (e.g., 'shrink' would be broken down into 'sh', 'r', 'i', 'n' and 'k' and blended together).

— Analytical phonics: readers are taught consonant blends as units (e.g., 'shr' is taught as a whole unit) and analyse sound-symbol relationships but do not blend the words together.

— Embedded phonics: readers are taught phonics as part of a whole-word approach to reading, not as separate lessons.

He went on to recommend, and the Government accepted, that "the case for systematic phonic work is overwhelming and much strengthened by a synthetic approach".[70]

[N]either Reading Recovery as part of [Every Child a Reader] nor Reading Recovery in the UK more generally provides systematic phonics instruction. [… D]espite these reported changes to the reading recovery programme, a fundamental conflict still remains between its approach and the revised National Literacy strategy, in which systematic teaching of phonics is now a central feature.[71]
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Post by debbie »

57. We received evidence that supported this position. Elizabeth Nonweiler, Teach to Read, highlighted Dr Sue Bodman's method of delivering a Reading Recovery lesson:

Bodman (2007)[[72]] describes a Reading Recovery lesson, which, she claims, 'links the teaching actions to the ideas of synthetic phonics': After reading a book, a child observes his teacher reading the word 'can' 'whilst demonstrating a left to right hand sweep'. Then he builds 'can' with magnetic letters and reads it himself. It is clear that the child was asked to read a text before acquiring the phonic knowledge and skills involved, and to read a word after being told the pronunciation. With synthetic phonics children read texts after learning the phonic knowledge and skills involved and they are not told the pronunciation of a new word before being asked to read it.[73]

58. We put it to the Minister, Ms Johnson, that the Government's use of Reading Recovery to help the poorest readers does not square with its support of the use of systematic phonics, particularly for children diagnosed with dyslexia. She told us:

Perhaps I ought to just say that the Reading Recovery that we are looking at, in terms of the evidence of Reading Recovery over the last 20 or 30 years, has changed and obviously phonics is now much more embedded within Reading Recovery than it was in the earlier examples of Reading Recovery.[74]
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Post by debbie »

And finally, the report concludes:

59. Phonics is "embedded" in the modern Reading Recovery, but systematic, synthetic phonics, as we have discussed above, is not. Teaching children to read is one of the most important things the State does. The Government has accepted Sir Jim Rose's recommendation that systematic phonics should be at the heart of the Government's strategy for teaching children to read.

This is in conflict with the continuing practice of word memorisation and other teaching practices from the 'whole language theory of reading' used particularly in Wave 3 Reading Recovery.

The Government should vigorously review these practices with the objective of ensuring that Reading Recovery complies with its policy
.
So, are multi-cueing reading strategies still a fundamental part of the RR teacher-training approach and methodology of lessons for children - or not?

How can we find out?

How can we find out whether the government has ensured 'that Reading Recovery complies with its policy'?
Last edited by debbie on Fri Mar 28, 2014 3:36 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by debbie »

An essay challenging the underpinning theory and practice of Reading Recovery - that of the 'multi-cueing strategies' approach:


http://www.onlinedigeditions.com/articl ... ticle.html

I'm having great difficulty achieving a full link (above) so I have copied the whole essay below (and note the final two sentences here):
Finally, it is incomprehensible to accept the claims that promote the RR program as being an effective and acceptable intervention for students with early reading difficulties when the program has such a heavy multiple cues bias within the teaching and assessment components. Of more concern is that while the international scientific community has rejected the multiple cues theory of word reading, the evidence for this rejection continues to be overlooked by RR proponents and many school systems..
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The Multiple Cues or "Searchlights" Word Reading Theory: Implications for Reading Recovery®
Keith T. Greaney

Introduction

While there appears to be strong support for Reading Recovery® (RR) in several countries (see What Works Clearinghouse, 2008) there is also research evidence suggesting that such support is not universal (Chapman, Greaney, & Tunmer 2007; Iversen & Tunmer, 1993; Tunmer & Chapman, 2003; Tunmer & Chapman 2004b; Chapman, Tunmer, & Prochnow, 2001).

In fact, there is an interesting irony about RR in New Zealand, the "birthplace" of the program. While RR was designed to help the lowest achieving students in literacy, there is evidence to suggest that it has had little impact on this group of students. RR was first introduced in New Zealand schools on a national scale in the early 1980s at a time when the country ranked first in the 1970 International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA) international survey of literacy achievement. Yet in the last 25 years following its introduction New Zealand's performance on the subsequent international literacy surveys such as PIRLS (see Mullis et al., 2003) has continued to drop from 1st in 1970, to 6th in 1990, to 13th in 2003, and to 26th in 2006 (Greaney, 2004; Tunmer & Chapman, 2004a:, Tunmer et al., 2008). Given that RR has been in operation for approximately 25 years and given that such a program was designed to assist the very children who comprise the lowest achievers in early literacy, it seems ironic that New Zealand's performances in international literacy surveys have continued to decline during this period.

While there have been several concerns about RR discussed in the research literature (Reynolds & Wheldall 2007; Shanahan & Barr 1995; Glynn, Crooks, Bethune, Ballard, & Smith, 1989; Chapman et al., 2007; Tunmer & Chapman 2004b; Iversen & Tunmer 1993; Tunmer & Chapman 2003), it is implied in this article that a major reason why RR has failed to have an impact on New Zealand's widening literacy achievement gap may be due to the program's heavy reliance on the multiple cues theory of word reading. A critical discussion of the multiple cues theory is important because this theory also underpins both the assessment and teaching practices of all RR teachers in whatever country the program operates. Furthermore, in New Zealand at least, (and possibly many other countries where RR operates), as a "flow-on" effect from RR, regular junior class teachers' reading assessment and teaching practices are also heavily influenced by this theory. (Children in New Zealand begin school on or soon after their fifth birthday and the first two-year groups are often referred to as junior classes.) The reason for the "flow-on" effect is that most RR teachers are also regular class teachers so it would be expected that their class literacy practices are influenced by many of the philosophical underpinnings of RR.

This article begins with an outline of the characteristics of the multiple cues theory of word reading. Second, some examples of how the running records assessment practices are influenced by this theory are presented and critically examined. Finally, a critical discussion of some examples of how the word identification teaching practices, particularly regarding the selection and use of teaching prompts, are also influenced by the multiple cues word reading theory are also presented.

. . . the multiple cues model of word reading has emerged and developed a particularly strong populatrity within whole language classroom evironments.

The Multiple Cues or "Searchlights" Theory of Word Reading

The relative importance that should be given to the explicit teaching of word identification strategies during instructional reading and tutor lessons is an area of debate among both teacher practitioners and researchers. Those who subscribe to the whole language (or meaning-emphasis) theory of reading claim that fluent readers use multiple cue sources of information including, activating prior knowledge, using sentence context and syntax cues, cues from any accompanying illustrations, and visual/grapho-phonic cues from the words (Clay, 2005a, 2005b; Smith & Elley, 1997; Smith, 1979; Hood, 2000; Ministry of Education, 2003). However, those who subscribe to the code-emphasis view of reading claim that, while these multiple cue sources may have some relevance, it is the visual/ grapho-phonic cues that are of prime importance and should therefore be explicitly taught as priority cues (Greaney & Arrow, 2010; Greaney, 2001, 2002; Pressley, 2006; Tunmer & Chapman, 2004a, 2004b; Tunmer & Greaney, 2010). For the past 40 years the multiple cues model of word reading has emerged and has developed a particularly strong popularity within whole language (i.e., meaning-oriented) classroom environments. One view of the multiple cues approach to word identification suggests that the multiple information sources available to readers enable them to predict or guess most unfamiliar words. Tunmer and Greaney (2010) state, for example, that "multiple cues theorists incorrectly assume that skilled reading is a process in which minimal word-level information is used to confirm predictions about upcoming text based on multiple sources of information" (p.230). Even though the model has been rejected by the scientific reading research community, the theory, as demonstrated later in this article, underpins how teachers both assess oral reading progress (i.e., running records) and how they instruct for word identification (i.e., teaching prompts).

The multiple cues theory of word reading model is often represented in diagrams similar to that presented in Figure 1 (see Hood, 2000; Smith & Elley, 1997; Clay, 2005b; Ministry of Education, 2003).

According to the Ministry of Education (2003) "Fluent readers and writers draw on their prior knowledge and use all available sources of information simultaneously and unconsciously" (p.30). While some researchers and commentators suggest that the multiple cues are viewed as being of equal importance, it is worth noting that the visual/grapho-phonic cues are always placed at the bottom of the diagram suggesting that perhaps these particular cues may be of less importance. In support of this concern Beard (2003) has noted that "Adams (1998) describes the way in which this diagram has been adopted in teacher education and is concerned that it may sometimes be used to underplay the role of phonics, as 'grapho-phonic cues' are tucked away at the bottom of the model, perhaps suggesting that such cues are a last resort in teaching" (p. 204).

Smith & Elley (1997) also maintain that "context cues are emphasized in junior classrooms [and that] reading is easier when cues that come from the meaning or the sentence structure help the child fill any gaps" (p. 26). Furthermore, Clay (1998) also suggests that there is a definite hierarchical order of the cues that young readers use when they read. She claims that beginning readers

need to use their knowledge of how the world works; the possible meanings of the text; the sentence structure; the importance of order of ideas, or words, or of letters; special features of sound, shape and layout; and special knowledge from past literacy experiences before (emphasis added) they resort to left to right sounding out of chunks or letter cluster, or, in the last resort, single letters (p. 9).

According to Clay's view, the word-level cues should be viewed as the least important. Frank Smith (1979) also views the word-level cues to be of least importance when he claims, for example, that "the first alternative and preference is to skip over the puzzling word. The second alternative is to guess what the unknown word might be. And the final and least preferred alternative is to sound the word out. Phonics in other words, comes last" (p.26).

The Multiple Cues or "Searchlights" Theory and Its Impact on Running Record Assessment Practices

Running records are the most common form of oral reading assessment used in elementary schools and in many tutor programs. (A running record is a recorded account of a student's oral reading behavior that is taken by the teacher as the student reads the text protocols.) Furthermore, running records are taken on a daily basis as an integral part of every RR lesson to monitor reading progress. A standard format for analyzing the error responses is used to calculate error and self correction rates and to analyze the extent to which the students are thought to be using the various (multiple) cues when attempting to identify unfamiliar words. Furthermore, the results from running records enable teachers to identify areas of weakness and to design instructional tasks to address these needs. Symbols are used to highlight the particular cues that students are deemed to have used when encountering unfamiliar words and these symbols represent the three main cues (M for meaning, S for sentence structure, and V for visual/grapho-phonics).

An example of a student's reading errors presented in an instructional resource text about running records for teachers (Ministry of Education, 2000, p.24) has the following story text and reading error responses and is presented to illustrate the level at which the multiple cues theory influences the analysis of the responses. The complete story is not inserted here, as only the sentences with the reading errors are the focus of the analysis. The reader's errors are printed above the words.

For the errors during the reading the student had identified only the d (for dropped), childrens (for children), walk (for wake) and wake for woke). The first error analysis showed that the student has used the visual (visual/grapho-phonic) cue for identifying the d (dropped). For the error childrens, (for children) the student has used both the meaning and visual/graphophonics cues, because the error indicates that the reader has retained the intended meaning and the error has retained grapho-phonemic similarity to the focus word. Similarly the error walk (for wake) is deemed to represent both sentence structure and close visual/grapho-phonic similarity. The final error wake (for woke) suggests that the reader has retained the meaning intention of the sentence and the two words are visually/grapho-phonemically similar. The emphasis on recording peripheral word-level information may be enough in and of itself to discourage teachers from further focusing on teaching for accurate word identification.

In a critique of running records procedures, Blaiklock (2004) also notes this concern when he states that "following these guidelines provides a misleading picture of a child's reading. A child who has difficulty decoding some words may still be assessed as making effective use of visual information if there is any visual connection between the child's errors and the correct words" (p. 248). Regardless of the quality of any reading errors, teachers should still recognize (when analyzing running records) that word reading errors are by definition, still incorrect responses and therefore, the problem should be viewed first and foremost, as one of inadequate decoding. In support of this concern (even when errors retain full meaning), McKenna and Picard (2006) also note that "teachers should view meaningful miscues (like substituting pony for horse) as evidence of inadequate decoding skills and not as an end result to be fostered" (p. 399).

The Multiple Cues or "Searchlights" Theory and Its Impact on Word Identification Teaching Practices

The extent to which explicit instruction in phonemically based decoding strategies should occur in the teaching of reading in the early years of instruction should be of interest to all teachers. This is because all general class teachers teach reading and they all use teaching prompts when instructing for word identification. When students encounter unfamiliar words during regular class instruction, the teacher can do several things including telling the word or offering prompts to assist the reader to either arrive at or decode the word themselves. However, some teaching prompts resemble nothing more than simple global clues similar to those used in a game of treasure hunt, while other prompts encourage the reader to activate specific word-learning strategies. The amount of metacognitive strategy involvement that the reader is encouraged to use is therefore dependent upon the quality of the prompts that the teacher selects. In other words, an effective word identification teaching prompt is more likely to strategically empower the student to be able to successfully identify the same word on subsequent encounters and in different texts. On the other hand, an ineffective prompt is unlikely to have any strategy-enhancing value for the student when the unfamiliar word is encountered on subsequent occasions.

Smith and Elley (1997) acknowledge that the predominant philosophy underpinning reading instruction in New Zealand has often been described as whole language. These authors define the whole language reading philosophy as being based on the theory that learning to read is as natural as learning to speak. They claim that, "educators who support this model of the reading process usually advocate a natural or whole language approach to teaching, arguing that reading and writing are best acquired naturally in the same way as we learn to speak and listen" (p. 77). Furthermore, teachers who subscribe to this naturalistic development viewpoint are less inclined to include explicit teaching in phonological-based word identification strategies in their classes.

In her most recent text for RR teachers Clay (2005b) states that when instructing for word identification "in your first attempts [italics in original] to call features of print to the child's attention, prompt for sentence structure, and then prompt for the message" (p. 111). In her companion text Clay, (2005a) further warns that "undue attention to the details of letters can block the child's ability to use his language knowledge and meaning of the text, as part of his information base for decision making" (p.25).

Discouraging the use of grapho-phonic cues is particularly problematic given that most of the students who are admitted on to RR programs have the greatest phonological-based learning needs. Chapman et al. (2001) found in a longitudinal study of RR that the students who failed to make satisfactory progress showed the most severe deficits on all phonological processing measures at the outset. Furthermore, Center, Freeman, and Robertson (2001) investigated whether the efficacy of RR outcomes varied as a function of classroom literacy program type. Whole language and code-emphasis classes were compared and the results showed that those RR students who had come from code-emphasis classes outperformed the RR students who had come from the whole language classes. It appeared that the code-emphasis instruction offered in the classes had compensated for the lack of attention given to this aspect within the RR lessons. However, for those students from the meaning-oriented classes where no code-emphasis instruction was present, the RR program had failed to address the phonological-based problems at all.

Despite the large amount of international research over the last 25 years that demonstrates the importance of (and the necessity to explicitly teach to some students), specific word-level identification skills, it is surprising that there is still so much attention given to the less efficient multiple cues approach. Of even more concern, is the continued and deliberate relegation of the visual/grapho-phonic cues to that of least importance. Several researchers share this concern. Pressley (2006) states for example that "the scientific evidence is simply overwhelming that letter sound cues are more important in recognizing words than either semantic or syntactic cues, [and that] a heavy reliance on the latter is a disastrous strategy for beginning readers" (pp. 16 and 36).

Furthermore, Moats (2007) notes that "Contextual guessing strategies are supported by the cueing systems model of word recognition which has no basis in reading science. According to this theory, students are said to use grapho-phonic cues, semantic or meaning cues, and syntax or contextual cues to recognize words. In practice, the emphasis is on anything but the links between speech sounds and spelling. Unfortunately, balanced literacy students are learning strategies that poor readers rely on, not what good readers know" (p. 20).

When investigating teacher preferences for word identification prompts Greaney (2001) demonstrated that teachers did prefer to use the context-based cues ahead of the phonologicalbased cue sources when instructing for word identification strategies. However, Morris et al. (2000) argue that "we should not dismiss the possibility (as Clay seems to do) that some children might benefit from studying a single information source (e.g., spelling patterns) in isolation while simultaneously being offered the chance to integrate this knowledge in contextual reading and writing" (p. 251).

It is unrealistic to expect teachers to have to teach students to read every unfamiliar word they encounter. This is because of what Juel and Minden-Cupp (2000) refer to as the "orthographic avalanche of print" they face. This refers to the amount and complexity of words that early readers encounter as they progress through school. However, this is the very reason why it is important that students should be taught to use effective word identification strategies that allow them to transfer such skills from the taught instructional situation to help them identify other unfamiliar words on subsequent encounters without needing to rely on assistance from teacher prompts. Because different texts present (even previously taught) words in different contexts, the reliance on the context-based cues that may have been successful in one situation (e.g., in conjunction with context-based prompting) will almost always not be helpful when the student encounters the same or similar words in subsequent texts. This is because regardless of the context in which hitherto unfamiliar words may reappear within subsequent texts, the visual/grapho-phonic representations of those words (i.e., spelling), remain constant, and it is the constancy of those visual/grapho-phonic representations that teachers should be encouraging students to focus on. This is what makes some prompts more strategically valuable for students.

Conclusions

While decoding is not sufficient for reading comprehension, it is nevertheless, necessary, (Gough & Tunmer, 1986). Because efficient readers are first and foremost, efficient decoders of print, it makes sense to focus on instructional strategies that are most likely to enhance the student's ability to independently decode the unfamiliar words while reading connected text. To do this it is important for teachers to understand that the greatest clue to a word's identity is the word itself. Unfortunately, this realization is unlikely to be fully accepted by many teachers while the predominant theory of reading both within regular class programs and in tutor programs like RR, continues to be dominated and influenced by the ineffective multiple cues theory of word reading.

As mentioned earlier, RR has been in operation in New Zealand since the early 1980s and since its inception over 25 years ago, our literacy achievement gap has actually continued to widen. Furthermore, in other countries where RR operates (with the same heavy reliance on the multiple cues theory), it would be logical to expect the same problems identified in this article, to also be present in relation to the teaching of word identification strategies to students with reading difficulties. Finally, it is incomprehensible to accept the claims that promote the RR program as being an effective and acceptable intervention for students with early reading difficulties when the program has such a heavy multiple cues bias within the teaching and assessment components. Of more concern is that while the international scientific community has rejected the multiple cues theory of word reading, the evidence for this rejection continues to be overlooked by RR proponents and many school systems.

References

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Center, Y., Freeman, L., & Robertson, G. (2001). The relative effect of a code-oriented and a meaning-oriented early literacy program on regular and low progress Australian students in Year 1 classrooms which implement Reading Recovery. International Journal of Disability, Development and Education, 48, 207–232.

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Stuart, M., Stainthorp, R., & Snowling, M. (2008). Literacy as a complex activity: Deconstructing the simple view of reading. Literacy, 42(2), 59–66.

Tunmer, W. E., & Greaney, K. T. (2010). Defining dyslexia. Journal of Learning Disabilities, 43(3), 229–243.

Tunmer, W. E., & Chapman, J. W. (2003). The Reading Recovery approach to preventive early intervention: As good as it gets? Reading Psychology, 24, 337–360.

Tunmer, W. E., & Chapman, J. W. (2004a). Why the reading achievement gap in New Zealand won't go away: Evidence from the PIRLS 2001 international study of reading achievement. DELTA, 56(2), 69–82.

Tunmer, W. E., & Chapman, J. W. (2004b). Reading Recovery: Distinguishing myth from reality. In R. M. Joshi (Ed.), Dyslexia, myths, misconceptions and some practical application (pp. 99–114). Baltimore, MD: International Dyslexia Association.

Tunmer, W. E., Nicholson, T., Greaney, K. T., Prochnow, J. E., Chapman, J. W., & Arrow, A. W. (2008). PIRLS before swine: A critique of New Zealand's national literacy strategy. New Zealand Journal of Educational Studies, 43(2), 105–119.

What Works Clearinghouse. (2008, December). Reading Recovery (WWC intervention report). Washington, DC: Institute of Education Sciences.

Keith Greaney, Ph.D., is a senior lecturer at Massey University College of Education. Keith was a primary school teacher for 28 years and since coming to Massey in 1998 has been teaching and researching in the areas of early literacy development and the assessment and teaching in literacy to children who have literacy-related learning difficulties.
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Post by debbie »

Very relevant to this thread -

I am linking to another thread where Professor Diane McGuinness comments on Reading Recovery studies and also asks the question why our weakest learners are given RR methods and not the methods recommended for the mainstream teaching:


http://www.phonicsinternational.com/for ... .php?t=509
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Post by debbie »

Also a very relevant thread from the UK Reading Reform Foundation message forum. This includes some very clear explanations from Educational Psychologists and further exposes the great contradictions in the messages from the Department for Education regarding how best to teach our children - including the slower-to-learn or weaker learners:

http://rrf.org.uk/messageforum/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=5360

Some of this information points yet again to the lack of consistency, and accountability, of people in high places and people in places of great influence - such as the government, the Reading Recovery organisation established in the Institute of Education, the British Council (see the PowerPoint of the talk by Russell Mayne):
A guide to pseudo-science in English language teaching

Presenter

Russell Mayne

Session Details

This talk will focus on aspects of English language teaching which have little or no scientific credibility. Practices such as neuro-linguistic programming, learning styles, multiples intelligences and brain gym will be examined. This talk will ask why, despite the evidence, these approaches/methods remain popular. It will also include a guide to spotting pseudo-science in education.
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Post by debbie »

Flagged up by 'AOL' via Twitter, 'Reading Recovery even gets its own myth'...


http://www.southcoasttoday.com/apps/pbc ... /404150301
Myth 3: Reading Recovery is a program that provides direct instruction in phonemic awareness to remediate reading problems.

Fact: While the goal of Reading Recovery is to reduce the number of first-grade students who experience difficulty with reading, it is not a program that is a systematic, multisensory, structured, rule-based method like the Wilson or Orton-Gillingham reading programs. Studies show that students who participate in pullout programs such as Reading Recovery often do not sustain the gains they have made, and may continue to experience reading difficulties in classrooms that do not have specific supports and systems in place for these at-risk learners.
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Post by debbie »

In the exemplification of the 'Teaching Standards' outlined in the official publication for Sheffield Hallam University and Roehampton University for student-teachers, it describes expectations for teachers with regard to provision for special needs:

On page 4 (of 13), it states the following:
• able to explain the broad principles of the use of systematic synthetic phonics
• uses systematic synthetic phonics with one to one learners (SEN, dyslexic pupils etc.)
No mention of the multi-cueing reading strategies which underpin the Reading Recovery programme.

But what are student-teachers, and newly qualified teachers, and existing teachers to think when they work in schools with resident Reading Recovery teachers and where the influence of the RR teachers is aimed across whole school practice?

The fundamental question for the Department for Education is how transparent and consistence is guidance for student-teachers and teachers regarding their methods for both mainstream and special needs reading instruction?
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Post by debbie »

The three-cueing model: Down for the count?


http://www.educationnews.org/articles/t ... count.html
Dr Kerry Hempenstall

Division of Psychology
RMIT University Australia.
Webpage - http://www.rmit.edu.au/staff/kerry_hempenstall
e-mail - kerry.hempenstall@rmit.edu.au

The three-cueing system is well-known to most teachers. What is less well known is that it arose not as a result of advances in knowledge concerning reading development, but rather in response to an unfounded but passionately held belief. Despite its largely uncritical acceptance by many within the education field, it has never been shown to have utility, and in fact, it is predicated upon notions of reading development that have been demonstrated to be false. Thus, as a basis for decisions about reading instruction, it is likely to mislead teachers and hinder students’ progress.

In the recently released Primary National Strategy (2006a), the three cueing model (known in Great Britain as the Searchlight model) is finally and explicitly discredited. Instead, the Strategy has acknowledged the value of addressing decoding and comprehension separately in the initial stage of reading instruction.

“ … attention should be focused on decoding words rather than the use of unreliable strategies such as looking at the illustrations, rereading the sentence, saying the first sound or guessing what might ‘fit’. Although these strategies might result in intelligent guesses, none of them is sufficiently reliable and they can hinder the acquisition and application of phonic knowledge and skills, prolonging the word recognition process and lessening children’s overall understanding. Children who routinely adopt alternative cues for reading unknown words, instead of learning to decode them, later find themselves stranded when texts become more demanding and meanings less predictable. The best route for children to become fluent and independent readers lies in securing phonics as the prime approach to decoding unfamiliar words (Primary National Strategy, 2006b, p.9).”

Ridding the system of this blight may not be as easy as the edict above implies. The three-cueing system is an established element in most preservice and inservice teacher training courses that include a literacy focus (Adams, 1998). It proffers an explanation (however misguided) of how skilled readers comprehend written language, and also provides a strong direction concerning the role of teachers in literacy education. It is one of those belief systems the origin of which is difficult to establish, and the wide-scale and uncritical acceptance of which is surprising to those anticipating an empirical foundation. There is a dearth of research support to justify a central role for the three-cueing system in determining what should be included in a reading program. In fact, in a despairing letter some years ago, 40 respected linguists (Eagle Forum, 1996) lamented that the underpinnings of the three-cueing system represented “ … an erroneous view of how human language works, a view that runs counter to most of the major scientific results of more than 100 years of linguistics and psycholinguistics” (Eagle Forum, 1996, p.8).
Hempenstall states:
Ridding the system of this blight may not be as easy as the edict above implies.
That's certainly true.

Does it live on in the Reading Recovery training and programme - and in other less expensive intervention programmes modelled after Reading Recovery?

That is the question.

Certainly in England, in 2011, Sheffield Hallam University conducted a review of methods used by teachers taking part in the Year One Phonics Screening Check pilot.

Shockingly, nearly three-quarters of the teachers described that they still used multi-cueing reading strategies - five years after the acceptance and adoption of Sir Jim Rose's independent national review (Final Report, March 2006).
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Post by debbie »

On her award-winning site www.dyslexics.org.uk , Susan Godsland outlines the following suggestions made by Sir Jim Rose - and their acceptance by the then Education Secretary, Ruth Kelly:

In his 2006 report, Sir Jim Rose said, 'The indications are that, when children do not get a really good start, they are likely to need interventions to enable them to 'catch up' and 'recover' ground that they should not have lost in the first place (Rose 2006.para 100)

In the same report, Sir Jim Rose recommended that additional support in ALL the 'waves' of intervention should be fully compatible with mainstream practice (high quality, systematic synthetic phonics taught discretely) (Rose Review 2006 p70)) and he rightly rejected the NLS multi-cueing strategies.

Ruth Kelly, Education Secretary at the time, accepted all the Rose report's recommendations and said she would ensure they were implemented (Kelly response to interim report 30/11/05) The DfES (now DfE) followed up by stating that, 'High-quality phonic work, as defined by the Rose review, should be a key feature of literacy provision in all the ‘waves’ of intervention' (DfES 2007 PNS)
Yet two years later in 2009, the Science and Technology select committee found the government seriously wanting in its promotion of Reading Recovery for intervention as the underpinning methodology in RR is not in line with government recommendations.

It appears that, to this day, this huge and serious contradiction in government advice has been completely swept under the carpet.

One has to wonder what the point of select committee inquiries is if the conclusions they draw are ignored or conveniently forgotten.

I have learnt that one of the most effective ways of dealing with any issue - including by those with great political clout - is simply not to deal with it.
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Post by debbie »

The UK Reading Reform Foundation response to the Science and Technology select committee inquiry 2009:


http://www.rrf.org.uk/pdf/RRF%20re%20S&T%20Report.pdf
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Post by debbie »

Kevin Wheldall just sent out a Twitter message with this link below - with the words: "Claptrap! Damaging rubbish. Ignores the evidence" - and he is right.

Read this piece for what NOT to do as a teacher of reading:


http://theconversation.com/the-seven-me ... hers-24777
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Post by debbie »

http://www.bdadyslexia.org.uk/files/Sin ... Report.pdf

Dr Singleton's 2009 report is referenced in the UK Science and Technology select committee's findings.

Read page 95 onwards of Dr Singleton's 2009 report regarding the Reading Recovery studies in England under the ECaR (Every Child a Reader) umbrella.

Dr Singleton provides figures and a detailed analysis of the realities of children's reading levels relative to the, then, national curriculum levels used to describe reading ability in England.

Page 117:

It is not until Level 2b that children are ‘almost entirely accurate’ readers. 48%–51% of ‘accelerated progress’ Reading Recovery children and 38%-43% of all Reading Recovery children who completed their programmes achieved Level 2b or above, compared with 71% of all children in England in both years.

Moreover, most of these Reading Recovery children (35%–37% accelerated progress, 28%-31% all completed programmes) achieved Level 2b, not any level above this. Only 12% of accelerated progress children and 9%–10% of all completed programme children achieved Level 2a, and 3% or fewer achieved Level 3, compared with 26% of all children in England.

At best, Reading Recovery enabled children to perform within the low average range (2c) for their age, whilst about 30% of completed programme children remained consistently at Level 1 or working towards Level 1, and only 10%–12% were working at Level 2a or above. Remember, Level 2a is the level at which children can ‘tackle unfamiliar words’ – the necessary feature that defines successful development of a self-sustaining word recognition system.

The same exercise has been conducted examining the Key Stage 1 writing National Curriculum assessment performance of children on Reading Recovery cohorts from 2003–04 to 2006–07, as well as comparing the 2005–06 and 2006-07 Reading Recovery cohorts with National Curriculum assessment results of all children in England in 2006 and 2007.

Without going into all the details, the results tell a similar story to the one described above for reading. 25%-31% of ‘accelerated progress’ children and 36%-40% of all children who completed their Reading Recovery programme scored at the lowest levels for writing (Level 1 or Working towards Level 1).

At best, Reading Recovery succeeded in getting about 40% of children who completed their programmes into the low average range of writing performance for their age (2c). A further 35%–40% of children who completed their programmes were below this range. Thus, 75%–80% of children completing Reading Recovery were low average writers or worse by the end of Key Stage 1, with only two in ten writing within the average range (Level 2b) or above, compared with six in ten of all pupils in England.

Fewer than one in a hundred Reading Recovery children (whether we count those making accelerated progress or all pupils completing the programme) achieved Level 3 in writing, compared with 13%-14% of all children in England.

5.5.3 Reading Recovery children’s standardised reading test results

The Reading Recovery annual reports for 2004-05 to 2006-07 also give measures of children’s progress on the British Abilities Scales Word Reading Test, Second Edition (BAS-II). For each of the three years the results published are identical: i.e. the average reading age of children entering programmes was 4 years 10 months, and average reading age of children of those who had been ‘successfully discontinued’ was 6 years 7 months (Douëtil, 2005, p.12; 2006, p.12, 2007a, p. 14). On the face of it, this looks like good progress.

However, before reaching this conclusion, two factors need to be considered. First, 6 years 7 months was the average reading age of only those children who responded well to Reading Recovery, and does not take into account those pupils for whom Reading Recovery did not seem to be such an effective intervention.

Secondly, a child can achieve a reading age of 6 years 7 months on BAS-II with knowledge of only a few words. To attain a reading age of 6 years 7 months, only 21 words on the test have to be read correctly, which can easily be achieved by a child who has memorised some very high frequency common words (e.g. the, up, you, at, said, out), and knows and can use single letter sounds, plus the simple digraphs ‘sh’ and ‘th’.

In other words, although the reading age gains look good, in fact, the child with a reading age of 6 years 7 months has minimal reading skills and is still a beginning reader.
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