A Critical Analysis of the Sources of Reading Recovery: An Empiricist Perspective

This discussion of the sources of Reading Recovery presents the results of an investigation into whether or not this relatively costly, tutoring remedial reading program, designed for primary-grade students, is based on relevant experimental evidence as to how these students best learn to read. The general finding of the study was that Reading Recovery principles and practices are not based firmly on the experimental evidence that supports the so-called bottom-up model of children's reading development. To the contrary of Reading Recovery, Marie Clay, favors so-called top-down principles and models of reading instruction. Reading Recovery uses several empirically unverified procedures to decide which students are admitted to its tutoring sessions, to determine the progress in reading rehabilitation these tutees make, and to judge when students should be discontinued from Reading Recovery tutelage. The details on the shortcomings of Reading Recovery are judged to be prima facie evidence that it may not be a cost-effective educational innovation. Further authentication in that regard, it is pointed out, are recent studies by disinterested researchers who report that: (a) the initial successes of Reading Recovery in helping disabled readers overcome their handicap are only temporary in nature, and (b) the majority of the precepts and procedures prescribed for Reading Recovery by Marie Clay reflect a top-down orientation to reading development, as does the Whole Language (WL) philosophy of reading attainment. Educators and school boards should take this orientation of Reading Recovery under advisement when considering its purchase, it is urged.     

Predictors of Reading Recovery book levels

The purpose of this paper is to determine whether predictor variables, selected from readability research and from teacher nomination, might be used to grade children’s early reading books. Two hundred Reading Recovery books were rated on five variables thought to represent ‘semantic’, ‘syntactic’ and ‘phonic’ features of text. The variables accounted for 83% of book level variance. In a cross‐validation exercise they were found to be stable and reliable. It is suggested that the data support the validity of the Reading Recovery book levels, and that the formula can be used by teachers to grade children’s early reading books.     

A Meta-Analysis of Interventions to Improve Reading Comprehension Outcomes for Adolescents with Reading Difficulties

This meta-analysis synthesized 97 effect sizes extracted from 37 intervention studies for students with reading difficulties (RDs) in Grades 6 to 12 published between 1982 and 2021 to identify the overall impact of reading interventions and the moderating effects of intervention characteristics and study design characteristics. Random-effects robust variance estimation (RVE) was used to account for dependencies within studies. Overall, interventions designed to improve reading comprehension outcomes for adolescents with RDs were effective (g = 0.63). Meta-regression analyses identified several significant moderators that were associated with intervention efficacy, such as text content, duration of intervention, agent of intervention, status of student, type of dependent measure, and study quality. We provide study limitations as well as implications for research and practice.     

Reading Recovery: Myth and Reality

Barrie Wade, School of Education, Birmingham University, describes the Reading Recovery programme, reviews the evidence for its effectiveness and concludes that it is 'a possible way forward'.     

Reading Recovery as an Epistemic Community

ABSTRACT

This introduction to the special issue on Reading Recovery situates the enterprise in a broader educational reform context that has placed a priority on developing and fielding large-scale, systemic interventions that support ambitious instructional practice and student outcomes. Within this context, Reading Recovery is examined as an evolving, adaptive epistemic community in which tutors, teachers, leaders, coaches, and developers collaborate to produce, use, and refine the practical knowledge needed to support and sustain success among large numbers of struggling readers. Viewing Reading Recovery as an epistemic community provides a framework for more deeply engaging the articles in this special issue, for reflecting on Reading Recovery's history of success, and for speculating about Reading Recovery's future in rapidly evolving policy and reform contexts.     

Examining the Sustained Effects of Reading Recovery

Though the immediate effect of Reading Recovery (RR) is both strong and well established, the longer term or sustained effect has been less studied and the evidence regarding it has been less conclusive. Michigan Reading Recovery students (n = 328) were compared to control students (n = 264) while in first (2009–2010), third (2011), and fourth grades (2012), using propensity score matching to generate 3 levels of eligibility. Although the immediate effect measured at mid-year of first grade on the Observation Survey was large (1.17), the effect by the end of first grade on the same measure was .51, and by third grade, the effect was .16 on the state reading test. The overall effect completely diminished by fourth grade, but it was significant (.35) for the most eligible students in reading, and for moderately eligible (.34) and most eligible students (.35) in writing. The sustained effect overall was present but diminished by third grade, and was sustained into fourth grade for those students at greater risk. The findings suggest that RR instruction should be better tailored to the initial literacy profiles of individual students to maximize the longevity of the effect for all participants.     

Reading Recovery in a British Infant School

Reading Recovery is an early intervention programme for children having difficulties in reading after one year of instruction, developed by New Zealander Marie Clay. In 1988, the Reading Recovery programme was demonstrated for 11 weeks with four children in an infant school in Cumbria, United Kingdom. This article discusses matters concerning the implementation of this programme in settings other than the one for which it was designed. The mean and individual reading progress of the four tutored children is reported and compared with that of an untutored reference group and an average group in the class. The tutored group made by far the largest gains on all reading‐and writing‐ related measures, and in most cases improved their levels of knowledge and skill beyond those of the average group in the class.     

Reading Recovery: Exploring the Effects on First-Graders' Reading Motivation and Achievement

ABSTRACT

This study examined the effects of Reading Recovery on children's motivational levels, and how motivation may contribute to the effect of the intervention on literacy achievement. Prior studies concluded that Reading Recovery was positively associated with increased student motivation levels, but most of those studies were limited methodologically. The achievement and motivation levels before and after the intervention of Reading Recovery students and similarly low-performing first-grade students were compared using structural equation modeling. It was found that Reading Recovery had a .31 treatment effect on achievement after controlling for baseline achievement and motivational differences among the treatment and comparison students. Reading Recovery also was associated with greater average levels of posttest motivation, and motivation was found to mediate the treatment-achievement relationship. This study highlights how important it is for early reading interventions to consider the role motivation plays in literacy acquisition.     

Reading Recovery: Long-Term Progress After Three Cohorts

The Wake County Public School System (WCPSS) in Raleigh, North Carolina, has had Reading Recovery (RR) programs in place since 1990. A longitudinal study of the effectiveness of RR examined retention, special education, and Chapter 1 service rates, as well as third-grade North Carolina End-of-Grade (EOG) test scores for students involved from 1990 through 1994. The results showed that RR students scored significantly higher on the Clay Diagnostic Survey than a control group. However, success rates declined in later years, and long-term results were not as positive. Compared to similar students, inconsistent benefits were found after 1 year, and no significant differences were found in retention, special education, Chapter 1 service rates, or North Carolina EOG test scores after 2 years. Several factors may have contributed to these results, including less than full implementation of the program in WCPSS, RR staff decisions on the number of lessons to provide, and subsequent reading instruction after first grade.     

Reading Recovery in Context: implementation and outcome

Reading Recovery is a school‐based preventive strategy designed to reduce the number of children with reading and writing difficulties. This study evaluated the implementation of Reading Recovery in 12 New Zealand schools. Target (Reading Recovery) and Comparison pairs of children were identified through the Reading Recovery procedures operated by each school. Results indicated that very few schools adhered closely to all recommended entry and discontinuation criteria. Results for Target and Comparison children's reading progress up to the time of discontinuation are highly consistent with results reported by Clay (1985), with clear gains in favour of Target children. However, these gains had reduced considerably by the time of follow‐up. Data suggest that programme gains were greatest for children entering the programme at the lowest reading levels. Outcomes are discussed in terms of the need for better articulation between Reading Recovery teachers and regular classroom teachers.     

Evaluating the Effectiveness of Reading Recovery: a critique

This paper attempts to examine critically evaluation studies concerned with the implementation of Reading Recovery, an intensive individualised early intervention programme, by focusing on teacher, child and systemic change. Some conceptual and methodological shortcomings which have characterised many evaluations to date are discussed, together with ways in which these weaknesses could be redressed in future studies.     

Meta-Analysis of the Impact of Reading Interventions for Students in the Primary Grades

Abstract

This meta-analysis systematically reviewed the most up-to-date literature to determine the effectiveness of reading interventions on measures of word and pseudoword reading, reading comprehension, and passage fluency, and to determine the role intervention and study variables play in moderating the impacts for students at risk for reading difficulties in Grades 1–3. We used random-effects meta-regression models with robust variance estimates to summarize overall effects and to explore potential moderator effects. Results from a total of 33 rigorous experimental and quasi-experimental studies conducted between 2002 and 2017 that met WWC evidence standards revealed a significant positive effect for reading interventions on reading outcomes, with a mean effect size of 0.39 (SE = .04, p < .001, 95% CI [0.32, 0.46]). Moderator analyses demonstrated that mean effects varied across outcome domains and areas of instruction.     

Reading Instruction for English Learners in the Middle Grades: a Meta-Analysis

This meta-analysis synthesizes the last two decades of experimental and quasi-experimental research on reading instruction across academic contexts (e.g., social studies, science, mathematics, English language arts) for English learners (ELs) in grades 4 through 8, to determine (a) the overall effectiveness of reading instruction for upper elementary and middle school students who are ELs and (b) how the magnitude of the effect varies based on student, instructional, and study characteristics. The analysis included a total of 11 studies with 46 individual effect sizes and yielded a mean effect size of g?=?0.35 across all (i.e., standardized and unstandardized) reading measures, g?=?0.01 across standardized reading measures, and g?=?0.43 across unstandardized reading measures. For all reading, unstandardized reading, all vocabulary, and unstandardized vocabulary measures, results suggest that higher quality studies tended to have smaller effects, and these effects were even more evident for unstandardized measures (i.e., one unit increase in study quality was associated with decreased effects: g?=?0.21, g?=?0.30, g?=?0.24, g?=?0.30, respectively). For all comprehension measures, effects were larger for instruction that included both vocabulary and comprehension (g?=?0.39) than for instruction that focused on vocabulary alone (g?=?0.08). Results suggest the benefit of developing and refining high-impact approaches to reading instruction for ELs that can be delivered across content areas and grades.     

影响留学生汉语阅读焦虑的因素

从阅读焦虑入手,从对汉字的主观感受、竞争心理、年龄及学习时间等不同的角度展开分析,初级汉语水平的韩日和欧美留学生产生阅读焦虑的不同的因素及特点,为第二语言学习和教学提供对策。     

The Impact of Motivational Reading Instruction on the Reading Achievement and Motivation of Students: a Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

Educational Psychology Review - This systematic review and meta-analysis explores the impact of motivational reading interventions on the reading achievement and reading motivation of school-age...     

从生态女性主义视角解读《复活》

列夫·托尔斯泰在小说《复活》中表现出比较成熟的生态女性主义思想。从生态女性主义视角解读这部作品,可以发现父权制下男性对自然的统治与女性的统治的一致性。托尔斯泰表达了对女性遭受土地生存权利和爱情婚姻权利的双重剥夺的不满,揭示了沙俄男权社会制度是危害女性生态发展的根源,并对女性自身意识觉醒和生态方向的救赎发展进行了多种探索。     

Scaling and Sustaining an Intervention: The Case of Reading Recovery

ABSTRACT

In every school district across the country, every year, initiatives are adopted with the goal of improving the literacy performance of young students, and, just as frequently, these initiatives fail or quickly become passing fads. In this article, Rodgers reviews literature related to scaling educational innovations and describes challenges and barriers to implementing and maintaining evidence-based reform. Using Reading Recovery as a case example, she describes features of the intervention that are thought to be linked to its longevity in terms of scalability and sustainability. She also shares lessons learned from the most recent period of its expansion with the 5-year grant to scale up Reading Recovery across the county. Implications from this article include the importance of adopting an initiative that has a well-articulated design, collecting data on the progress of the students served, and having a person in the district who acts as a redirecting agent, maintaining the design of the initiative and guarding it against tendencies to pare down the design.