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Some interesting discussions based in Canada about the nature and merits (or not) of the Reading Recovery intervention programme.
This topic is pertinent to the UK and other English-speaking countries - where it is clear that Reading Recovery has some kind of institutional hold in the educational domain - not based on the research conclusions of the most effective practices for reading instruction.
I think we need to be accurate when critiquing Reading Recovery: there are plenty of empirical data for arguing for good SP or other systematic phonics interventions in lieu of RR for best results for students. However, the above contains a number of factual errors.
Reading Recovery is by no means universal; many school districts here do not use it, precisely because of the costs involved, and the fact that it serves exclusively students in Grade 1. It would be a very unusual thing for a Reading Recovery teacher to make $90 000 (the average is more like $55 000), and s/he would certainly deal with more than a few students per day. It's true that a RR teacher can only serve 4-5 RR students per day, but in the rest of the day, if s/he is a rotary subject teacher, s/he can easily have up to 120 students.If s/he does other withdrawal intervention, she likely has 15-20 other students. There is a great deal of administrative and paper work required in Reading Recovery, and teachers must attend many RR training sessions and meetings, many of which are after school and on their own time. I've known a number of Reading Recovery teachers, and they certainly worked hard (and overtime) to help their students. Many *also* worked with the students on systematic phonics, at times other than the RR lessons. Out the door at 3? Hardly.
I don't know of any data that suggest that Reading Recovery is an add-on to existing staff or budget lines: we would have the same number of staff, with or without RR, but could deploy them differently, which is the real issue. We would be better of with models like those developed by Tunmer and colleagues in NZ offering reading support to small groups of students, because we would then be reaching more students, more effectively, for the same expense in personnel. We could make better use of TA's, as they do in the UK, for even more bang for our buck. But the decision to use RR (or not) does not generate staff or decrease staff.
I very much doubt that "reducing class size" is a factor for Grade 1 teachers with RR pupils -- it's only one student who is withdrawn, and only for a half hour. Most primary teachers I have known much preferred small-group support for their weaker students, because they could then teach a differentiated lesson to the rest of the class and also be certain their lower performers were getting appropriate help that would boost their skills. In the past we often got all Grade 1 students achieving within expected parameters using good interventions. Naturally teachers support whatever help their students can get, whether it's from a Reading Recovery teacher, literacy support teacher, teaching assistant or volunteer. I personally see nothing nefarious or self-serving about this.
Some students do show significant improvement with RR; there is no use disputing this fact. The problem is that the long-term follow-up data is weak and does not control for other variables (did the students subsequently receive other interventions, private tutoring, etc.?) and it is clearly *not* the only or most cost-effective literacy intervention available. Marie Clay was ahead of her time when she first developed RR based on observations of what young children actually do while reading; unfortunately, RR has not kept up with the research and developments in reading science. We now have much better information on how to intervene effectively with young readers and both support and accelerate their learning. The challenge is to make THIS information more widely available and recognized, not simply to blame parents or teachers who have hitherto supported Reading Recovery (because they HAVE seen benefits). It's not a conspiracy. Many parents and teachers have seen positive results with RR, so their support for it is honest and genuine. However, results could be better with something like RWI (not available here) or something similar. That is the message that needs to get out -- we can help more students, more effectively, for the same cost. Let's do it!
We need to concentrate on showing the world we have a better mousetrap -- because we do.
