The Effect of the Reading Recovery Program on Children with Reading and Learning Difficulties

The purpose of this essay is to explain the effectiveness of the reading recovery program (RR) on students with reading and or learning disabilities (RD or LD). The studies reviewed looked at students who were at-risk for LD, who had RD, or who had a severe reading difficulty. The studies revealed that research that explores the implicit effect of the reading recovery program on students with LD is limited, but provided evidence for its importance as a tool to identify students early on and act as an effective early intervention method. ?The program has many pros and cons and the studies reviewed in this paper reveal that the RR program is not directly effective for students with LD. ?However, it is useful because it can help at-risk students get the help they need, and it is beneficial for students with LD who will be referred to more appropriate programs that suit their needs. Finally, researchers are moving ?toward a second step in RR, focusing on important skills to help students' ?beyond the at-risk category. ????????????????

The reading recovery (RR) program, first designed by Clay in the 1970s, is defined as "a highly effective short term intervention of one-on-one tutoring for low achieving first graders" (RRCNA, Basic Facts). It involves up to twenty weeks of intensive half-hour training periods, with a goal of enhanced capability of students to learn at the level of their classmates (RRCNA, Basic Facts). Much research has been conducted to test the program's effectiveness on students who are described as poor or at-risk readers, however, research is somewhat limited about the effectiveness of this program for learning disabled (LD) and reading disabled (RD) students. This paper will look at four studies, which describe the effectiveness of the RR program with poor readers, at risk readers, LD and RD students as participants.

The reading recovery program focuses on individual attention, various assessment techniques, particular lesson content, and phonetic and comprehension skills during weekday half-hour sessions with first grade students (RRCNA, Lessons). The strength of the RR program is that students who are at-risk for further reading difficulties receive immediate attention and are not put into long term remediation programs, such as special education or resource classrooms. Many learning disabilities and reading disabilities are noticed in early years, and teachers often refer students to intervention programs or for further assessment. There is some evidence that the reading recovery program is effective for students who are poor readers or who are at risk for learning and reading disabilities. The RRCNA notes that students "referred for learning disabilities screening dropped from 1.26 percent to just 0.51 percent over the period 1988-1993" (RRCNA, Learning Disabilities). This is statistically important because it shows that students who are poor readers can eventually catch up with the students in their class if they are not automatically labeled as RD or LD, and instead learn to read using Clay's intervention method. The RR intervention program would be effective if it only reduced the number of students classified as LD or RD, however, it also helps at-risk LD students and is an effective method at getting poor readers back on track. The RRCNA also notes a study conducted by the Massachusetts legislature in which Clay's program was deemed useful because it was considered not only effective by reducing the number of disabled students, but also was inexpensive (RRCNA, Learning Disabilities). This is not only beneficial to the students, but also to school boards who often work with limited budgets.

The articles reviewed in this paper discuss the effectiveness of the RR ?program for at risk children, and include those with LD and RD in the ?studies. One striking discovery, however, is that the research proves the recovery program works, yet there is little information on its effectiveness as a program specifically for helping students classified as ?learning disabled. ?

O'Connor et al. (2002) looked at the effectiveness of reading intervention of students classified as poor readers and whether classroom-matched or reading-level-matched material was a more effective method of teaching in intervention programs. They found that students who learned at their own level became better decoders, but had smaller vocabularies than students taught at an age-appropriate level that often suffered from studying material they did not have the ability to learn. The most remarkable defect of this paper was that it included learning disabled students as over half of its participants, yet it did not comment on the specific implications for LD or RD students! What is beneficial, however, is that the program seemed to help group members in either condition, with and without a defined learning disability, indicating that reading recovery or similar programs are an effective tool for both students at risk and those with reading and learning disabilities.

The implications of this study indicate that it is best to teach students the initial skills, which, one could argue, follows Chall's model. ?O'Connor et al. (2002) pointed out that there is little research on why students with RD still struggle with reading, despite the fact that they are continuously exposed to intervention programs and reading material. They suggest that other research indicates that tutoring rarely occurs after grade three. This implies that not enough is being done for LD and RD students, especially early on. Not only is there a limited amount of research on whether a program like reading recovery could benefit older children, but also those same children are classified as having a learning disability, when early intervention may have impacted these numbers (Lyons, 1994). ?

The core of the O'Connor et al. (2002) study was a thirty-minute ?training program over four days for approximately eighteen weeks for students in grades three to five. The age of these students is significant, since the RR ?programs that exist typically are targeted at younger children. Five minutes in total were spent on phonological blending and segmenting, word analysis, ?phonetic generalizations, and orthographic pattern syllables. Twenty minutes ?were spent on reading connected text, fluency-building activities, and ?comprehension strategies, and the remaining five minutes was left for spelling or writing integrated into their work (O'Connor et al., 2002). A sample of ?forty-six students, twenty-five of which had LD, improved their reading skills in the two treatment groups. Their abilities were higher than the control group ?in segmenting, word attack, word identification, and word comprehension, as well as passage comprehension. Students who read at their own level became