Analyzing a Critique Reading Recovery

¶ … Recovery The Reading Recovery Program -- Analysis The Reading Recovery program is an intervention informed by research that seeks to expedite learning and lowering the writing and reading failure rates among learners that fall in the lower 20% within the first year. The approach is a brainchild of a psychologist and educator from New Zealand who came up with the findings in 1980. Dame Marie Clay observed from his research and his observation of good practice in the classroom to evolve Reading Recovery.

The program was already widely used in New Zealand by 1988. It also spread to Australia, the U.S.A. and lots of other European nations (NSW Government, 2016). The program is designed to enable learners succeed within a supportive classroom environment. The New South Wales Department of Education and Communities (1999-2011) acknowledges this with little extra support. The initial years are critical for learners that are on the brink of failure because the stage is a preparation for learning at a later stage.

If such intervention is not facilitated, learners are pushed to pursue remedial learning in the long-term; a protracted and expensive process. If the intervention is made within the schools in second year, Reading Recovery has the potential to stop the likelihood of failing for vulnerable learners. If there is a persistent instruction on a daily basis, it can improve the literary performance of the lowest learners within 12 to 20 weeks. Methods, Tools and Assessment Used Within the Program The program is a cohesive, systematic and comprehensive in its implementation.

It uses sound instructional approaches that work well as a foundation for effective instruction. It takes a whole year to train teachers, professional support network, evaluation and research elements for the program monitoring of effectiveness at the state and international platforms and for purposes of ensuring accountability. The Reading Recovery Program is strongly anchored at all levels, local and otherwise. The teachers on the program render teaching lessons that run for 30 minutes every day. This sums up to a total of between 30 and 50 hours of lesson for 6 students at most.

The lesson is learner focused and designed for the individual needs of each learner. The method is complementary to routine classroom instruction by way of providing the learner with a range of reading and writing at the instructional levels that are ideal for the learners (NSW Reading Recovery, 2016). The program comes with the strongest evidence yet in early literacy programs. The outcomes are evidently sustainable since 1996. The learners in the program have been followed and their learning levels effectively measured.

Available data points out that 89% of NSW students in year 3 had risen above or at least were at the minimum threshold two years after attending the program. Other evidence from abroad supports the effectiveness of the program. Studies in USA showed that learners that went through the program performed within the average of their counterparts in standardized tests. There has been a follow up on learners attending the NSW program since 1996. So far 84968 learners have gone through the program (NSW Reading Recovery, 2016).

Multi-literacies, Digital Learning and Chances for Diverse Learning The program addresses the needs of learners with special gifts. 883 learners from the aboriginal community took part in the Reading Recovery program in the first year in NSW schools. Early childhood teachers are also incorporated in areas where access to the program is remote. Response to intervention is also applied to facilitate the teaching of literacy to learners and programs that are assisted by computer software (NSW Reading Recovery, 2016).

On the other hand, there is an argument presented by Webb (2016) that early intervention by the program at children with reading difficulties may not.