Beginning Readers

Program
Reading Recovery

Reading Recovery®

Program description

Reading Recovery® is a 1-1 tutoring program designed for use by students in elementary school. The program is designed to identify first-grade students who, after one year of formal schooling, are struggling with beginning reading. Reading Recovery® provides fluency instruction, letter and word identification skills, phonemic and orthographic awareness instruction, book reading with scaffolded teacher support, and daily progress monitoring. Tutoring is delivered by trained Reading Recovery®teachers in daily 30 minute small group sessions for 12-20 weeks. Teachers providing program instruction are required to complete a yearlong graduate level training course prior to certification.  

Student population

Reading Recovery® has been examined in first grade students from rural and urban settings. Student demographics include general education learners, English language learners, Black, White, and Hispanic racial and ethnic groups as well as a blended proportion of students who were or were not eligible for Free and Reduced price lunch.

Current evidence

Reading Recovery® has been rated as Strong by Evidence for ESSA (https://www.evidenceforessa.org/programs/reading/reading-recovery) for first grade students. The What Works Clearinghouse reported Potentially Positive Effects (https://ies.ed.gov/ncee/wwc/Docs/InterventionReports/wwc_readrecovery_071613.pdf) for building Alphabetics, Reading Fluency and Comprehension Skills, and Positive Effects for General Reading Achievement in first grade.

For more information

https://readingrecovery.org/reading-recovery/

May, H., Sirinades, P., Gray, A., & Goldsworthy, H. (2016).  Reading Recovery: An Evaluation of the Four-Year i3 Scale-Up; A Research Report. University of Delaware Center for Research in Education & Social Policy.

Pinnell, G., Lyons, C., DeFord, D., Bryk, A., & Seltzer, M. 1994). Comparing instructional models for the literacy education of high-risk first graders. Reading Research Quarterly, 29 (1), 9-39.

https://www.evidenceforessa.org/programs/reading/reading-recovery