A Review of Reading Recovery Research

Reading Recovery (RR) is a brief, intensive and highly prescriptive literacy intervention developed in the 1970s by New Zealand educator, Dame Marie Clay. It is designed to identify students whose reading and writing progress places them in the bottom 20% of their cohort, so they can subsequently participate in daily individualised tuition in an attempt to accelerate their literacy levels to that of their peers. Since its inception, RR has been widely adopted, starting in New Zealand and branching out to the United States, Canada, Great Britain, Australia and Denmark, where it has been a staple of many education systems for 10 to 20 years. Although the program has been shown to deliver substantial short term literacy gains for students, there is some contention about its research base, its applicability to all students and the retention of gains made. With such a large and lengthy uptake of the program, it could be assumed that RR has been proven to be an effective method of literacy remediation that has withstood the rigours of research. However, although there have been a seemingly large number of studies on the efficacy of RR, there is much contention about the validity of the data collected. For example, in a review of reading interventions conducted by What Works Clearinghouse (WWC) a body established by the US Department of Education to determine the most effective research-based educational practices it was found that only 5 out of 106 research papers met the organisations stringent evidence standards pertaining to randomised controlled or quasi-experimental studies (WWC, 2008). According to Reynolds, Wheldall and Madelaine (2009) this number is small in relation to the extent of the programs implementation and the amount of funding that has been allocated to the program over 25 years. Conversely, Schwartz, Habsbaum, Briggs & Scull (2007) argue that this number is a valid research base when compared to the other 124 beginning reading programs identified by WWC out of the 51 studies relating to beginning reading programs that passed muster, five of them pertained to RR. Other criticisms levelled at RR data validity include system differences, for example, differing school entry ages in different countries affecting the types of students accepted into the program and subsequent gains made, as well as the use of in house data collection methods and the exclusion of unsuccessful students in data (Shanahan & Barr, 1995). In fact, in an analysis of RR evaluations conducted by Shanahan and Barr (1995, p. 961) the authors stated that they found no studies of Reading Recovery that did not suffer from serious methodological or reporting flaws but did attach the disclaimer that intervention research is an especially complex and difficult undertaking, and it is rare that all threats to validity can be controlled for in this type of work. Beyond the academic stoushes surrounding validity, there is fairly solid evidence indicating that RR works in the short term, and for some students. In its review of RR research, WWC (2008) found positive effects in alphabetics (phonemic awareness, print awareness, letter knowledge and phonics) and general reading achievement (dictation and writing vocabulary) whilst having potentially positive effects in fluency and comprehension (including vocabulary). Although these effects have been accurately conveyed, the WWC review is somewhat limited (Reynolds, Wheldall & Madelaine, 2009; Englemann, 2008; Stockard, 2008). Firstly, WWC included a study by Iverson and Tunmer (1993) and correctly conveyed its findings that RR had a statistically significant positive effect on childrens alphabetic knowledge. However, it failed to divulge that RR paired with explicit code instruction resulted in students reaching discontinuation much more quickly. These findings are particularly relevant to those who criticise RR for its whole language approach to reading (Moats, 2000; Iverson & Tunmer, 1993; Reynolds, Wheldall & Madelaine, 2009; Center, Freeman & Robertson, 2001), claiming that its heavy reliance on syntactic and semantic knowledge allows for only incidental learning of phonological and graphophonic knowledge. These critics may have a point, given that those students entering RR with poor phonological processing skills make fewer gains than those with better skills (Center, Wheldall, Freeman, Outhred & McNaught, 1995; Chapman, Tunmer & Prochnow, 2001). Similarly, a number of studies have determined that supplementing RR with an explicit code-oriented program ensures greater gains, although not necessarily large enough to bring students to the level of their peers (Center, Freeman & Robertson, 2001; Iverson & Tunmer, 1993). Perhaps initial RR screening of students should include greater testing of phonological skills to determine the individual needs of the

child, so that an alternate program can be used to support their foundation learning and RR resources can be re-directed towards students with greater likelihood of success. Another limitation in the WWC review is that their priority [was] to investigate the effects of the beginning reading interventions over one year (Dynarski, 2008, as cited in Reynolds et.al.,2009). Subsequently, the review is only useful in declaring that RR is effective in the short term a claim that is largely undisputed (Askew & Frasier, 1997; Lyons, 1997; Pinnell, Lyons, DeFord, Bryk, & Seltzer, 1994). However, there are quite a few studies indicating that the gains made in Year 1 are not retained as students progress through to later primary years (Shanahan & Barr, 1995; Hurry & Sylva, 2007; Center et.al. 1995; Glynn, Bethune, Crooks, Ballard & Smith, 1992). However, as Schwarz (2007) justifiably argues, retention of gains is a difficult issue to research, given the variety of influences that could impact on a control group over a number of school years. So although short term gains for many students may warrant the wide-scale implementation of RR, it is quite clear that it should not be seen as a quick fix solution to the literacy woes of all students. Having said that, perhaps there needs to be further investigation of how RR students are supported beyond the RR room, as maybe systemic change or greater professional development is needed to ensure that gains are maintained. Additionally, we need to ensure that the building blocks of literacy phonological skills are in place before students undertake the program, and that time and resources arent being wasted on a program theyre not ready for. Finally, proponents of RR need to be more open to the idea that their sacred cow is not so sacred, and be open to constructive criticism in an effort to improve it. This is best summed up by Reynolds et.al. (2009) - the point at issue is not, however, and never has been, whether RR is effective or notwe have always acknowledged that it is; rather it is a question of whether it is effective enough? REFERENCES Askew, B. J., & Frasier, D. F. (1997). Sustained effects of Reading Recovery intervention on the cognitive behaviours of second grade children and their perceptions of their teachers. In S. L.Swartz & A. F. Klein (Eds.), Research in Reading Recovery (pp. 1838). Portsmouth, NH:Heinemann. 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(2), 207 - 232. Center, Y., Wheldall, K., Freeman, L., Outhred, L., & McNaught, M. (1995). An evaluation of Reading Recovery. Reading Research Quarterly, 30(2), 240-263. Chapman, J. W., Tunmer, W. E., & Prochnow, J. E. (2001). Does success in the Reading Recovery program depend on developing proficiency in phonological-processing skills? A longitudinal study in a whole language instructional context. Scientific Studies of Reading, 5(2), 141 - 176. Clay, M.M. (1993). Reading Recovery: A guidebook for teachers in training. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann. Clay, M.M. (2002). An observation survey of early literacy achievement (2nd ed.). Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann. Glynn, T., Bethune, N., Crooks, T., Ballard, K., & Smith, J. (1992). Reading Recovery in Context: implementation and outcome. Educational Psychology, 12(3), 249 - 261. Hurry, J., & Sylva, K. (2007). Long-term outcomes of early reading intervention. Journal of Research in Reading, 30(3), 227-248. Iverson, S., & Tunmer, W. E. (1993). Phonological processing skills and the Reading Recovery program. Journal of Educational Psychology, 85(1), 112-126.

Lyons, C. A. (1997). Reading Recovery and learning disability: Issues, challenges and implications. In S. L. Swartz & A.F. Klein (Eds.), Research in Reading Recovery (pp. 122131). Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann. Pinnell, G. S., Lyons, C. A., DeFord, D. E., Bryk, A. S., & Seltzer, M. (1994). Comparing instructional models for the literacy education of high-risk first graders. Reading Research Quarterly, 29, 938. Reynolds, M., Wheldall, K., & Madelaine, A. (2009). The devil is in the detail regarding the efficacy of Reading Recovery: A rejoinder to Schwartz, Hobsbaum, Briggs, and Scull. International Journal of Disability, Development and Education, 56(1), 17 - 35. Schwartz, R. M., Hobsbaum, A., Briggs, C., & Scull, J. (2009). Reading Recovery and evidencebased practice: A response to Reynolds and Wheldall (2007). International Journal of Disability, Development and Education, 56(1), 5 - 15. Shanahan, T., & Barr, R. (1995). Reading Recovery: An independent evaluation of the effects of an early instructional intervention for at-risk learners. Reading Research Quarterly, 30(4), 958-996. What Works Clearinghouse. (2008). Reading Recovery intervention report. Retrieved 27th April, 2009, from Institute of Education Science, US Department of Education website: http://ies.ed.gov/ncee/wwc/reports/beginning_reading/reading_recovery/