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Primary education

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Original poster

Reading recovery programme?

110 replies

scortja · 12/09/2014 10:50

Has anyone's child been on the reading recovery programme? DS1 was offered a place on it today and I am ashamed to say I cried!

He's 5 and 9 months and a fairly average reader (I thought) - the coordinator went to great lengths to assure me that he 'just needed a little help' but I assume he actually needs A LOT of help if he's been given a place on the programme..

OP posts:
mrz · 13/09/2014 09:47

The independentevidence from around the world is that RR does not work for those children who most need support and that for many others any gains made are short lived once RR ends.

InfantSchoolHead · 13/09/2014 09:56

So would you recommend to the OP mrz that she goes into school on Monday, tells them that she's had a think about it, read up on some studies and decided that she's going to turn down the offer of 12+ weeks of 1:1 reading tuition for her DS?

Children are all different, no one way fits all. In my opinion (based on personal experience, not from trawling the internet) this really is an opportunity not to be missed.

HarveySchlumpfenburger · 13/09/2014 11:18

What I think the OP needs to do is to go in and talk to the school properly. I would want them to be able to tell me how far behind national expectations he is and what his specific problems are. Then she can make a decision about where she goes next. Some parents chose to do RR, some choose to do another intervention themselves, some a mix of the two.

You are right, that a lot of this isn't helpful to the OP because she can't choose what the school are teaching or what extra help the school put in place for those that need extra help. But I don't think it's helpful to paint RR as 'the best intervention money can buy' or an opportunity not to be missed either.

It is at best a controversial intervention, although clearly your experiences and mine differ slightly.

InfantSchoolHead · 13/09/2014 11:28

I have never said that it's the best intervention money can buy, and I did say WRT the 'not to be missed opportunity', that it was my opinion. I agree that a visit in to school to find out more would be useful and I do hope that the OP (assuming her DS completes his RR programme) comes back to us later in the year to let us know how he got on.

mrz · 13/09/2014 14:00

I believe approaching a situation with all the relevant information is the best course of action, knowledge is empowering. Going into school with no knowledge of the background and being told by the Head that it is a wonderful opportunity not to be missed puts you at an immediate disadvantage.
If it were my child I would want to know why my child has been selected (as Rafa says, how far behind and exact nature of difficulty) and how the intervention is to be delivered, who will be teaching my child and when. I would be very unhappy if this proposed intervention took place during normal teaching time meaning my child would be withdrawn from lessons for example. Then armed with all the facts I would make my choice.

Mashabell · 13/09/2014 19:03

InfantSchoolHead
Learning to read is a complex craft and if there really was one fail safe method then it would have been discovered long ago, and this debate (in the wider sense) would not still be going on.

I have said so umpteen times over the years.

Some children find the changing sounds of many English letters (great treat, on only once, sound soup) quite difficult to cope with, especially if their minds are of the more logical kind, and can really benefit from extra one-to-one help for accessing words, regardless of method.

Why not ask his teacher why he was chosen for it? Perhaps his maths is way ahead of his reading? This could be the reason for it.

mrz · 13/09/2014 20:05

Children aren't chosen for reading support because their reading is weaker than their maths masha

HarveySchlumpfenburger · 13/09/2014 20:29

I don't know mrz. Maybe my niece's reading support was given on the basis of her level 6 maths. Or maybe not.

WaffleWiffle · 13/09/2014 20:38

Is Reading Recovery the same as ECaR (Every Child a Reader)?

Or are these two different programs?

It's just that ECaR in our primary is based solely on phonics and is expensive but brilliant!

mrz · 13/09/2014 21:10

Every Child A Reader is based on Reading Recovery

mrz · 13/09/2014 22:19

If it's based on phonics it isn't following the principals of ECAR

Original poster
scortja · 15/09/2014 11:54

Good lord! Look at all these messages!

The school are quite opaque with their answers - I definitely have the impression that they don't use any negative phrases.. So he isn't 'behind' the rest of the class or in the lowest achieving group or failing or anything like that - it's maddening trying to work out what is actually going on..

When they showed me his scores for various tests they were either average, slightly below average, or slightly above average - but clearly everyone else is doing better.. I think - they won't really tell me..

But, as pointed out, one to one tuition isn't to be sniffed at.. I think maybe phonics isn't working for him and that is perfectly understandable.. He does memorise books after the first reading and that has made things hard at home.. He'll read a book at school, memorise it and then read it back to me at home so it seems as though he's doing well..

Ergh.. He also told me he wants to sit inside at playtime because he finds the other children too loud - so maybe there's a whole LOT of other stuff going on! Will talk to the teacher this week..

Thanks for all the messages..

OP posts:
AutumnIsComing · 15/09/2014 12:56

School put DS on this after Christmas in yr1. It was sold to me as they were doing it to speed him along and because they knew he had a supportive family who would put the time in too support this. There was very little other information forth coming.

End reception, we'd also started a phonics based program at home Dancing bears and it had become clear he was struggling to hear all the sounds in words and hadn't therefore really got phonics.

The extra reading ended up being 20 min every school evening and at weekend on top of normal 10 minutes reading and on top of the 10 minutes phonics stuff and other stuff - and I had other DC needing time - it rapidly got to a burden.

We had lots of arguing because as normal I refused to allow picture looking for clues and guessing - and tried to insist of decoding words which wasn't what he was being told to do.

DS is now a fantastic reader - he passed the end of yr phonics test with really high score. I'm sure this is put down to his participation in the reading recover program - he did do extra reading because of it but it's not the whole story.

He'll read a book at school, memorise it and then read it back to me at home so it seems as though he's doing well..

My eldest did this too and school could never see an issue.

It has caught up more and more as she gets older with her spelling an big problem area, reading is now much slower than average - it shows more and more. She started reception knowing all her jolly phonics sounds - yet their mixed approach which they said was phonics encouraged this behavior. She since had extra phonics lessons at school and I've started various phonic based reading and spelling stuff with her but it playing catch up and fill in the gaps and she has bad habits that she clings to.

I wish I'd done a solid based phonics program like dancing bears from start with her because she didn't get that good grounding.

Mashabell · 15/09/2014 13:07

AutumnIsComing
her spelling a big problem area

This may have nothing whatsoever to do with not having a good grounding in phonics. Lots of children who do get it, still have spelling problems, because English spelling is often irregular (blue, shoe, flew, through, too...).

Being a good speller is mainly a matter of having a good visual memory.

AutumnIsComing · 15/09/2014 14:27

Oddly DD1 has a fantastic visual memory as do I - how ever spelling is very much an issue.

In my case visual diagrams have/are best study revision aid to me - but spelling is very poor though has improved with age perhaps I'm not normal though as diagnosed dyslexic.

In my case - I do not decode words well as do tend to muddle words with similar begins and endings and rely heavily on context to sort out that out. I'd suspect I was relying much more on how a word looks it's shape, and presumably therefore my visual memory, than an automatic decoder looking at letter grouping in a word and assigning their sounds.

Knowing that certain letters grouped together make certain sounds - reduces the options that could be correct - so DS knows hate - could be spelt hait, haet or hate from sounds so has a reduce list to select from - but with DD and myself when younger you get any random grouping of letters after the initial h because we hadn't understood the link.

While English spelling in particular has a more complex phonics code to other languages - I think knowing letter groupings and sound links is a help in spelling and in my DD and mine case a big reason we struggled.

Obviously there are other reasons for poor spelling though not just poor phonics understanding - I never said there wasn't - just DD1 with her phenomenal memory, that got her through reading at first, and poor grounding in phonics it was a consequence. One I've mentioned to OP so she can keep an eye out just in case it happens to her son.

Best cure has been the sound foundations apple and pears - which builds words up and teaches common letter grouping but also gets in the handwriting practise - the automatically writing a word correctly bit as it's been done so many times before - which is as much being a good speller as looking at a word and knowing that it's spelt wrong.

AutumnIsComing · 15/09/2014 14:30

My other main point to OP - was DS was by year 2 very much one of the better readers in his year - so even if her DS is struggling now or is average in yr 1 - like my DS was - it may well not stay that way.

orangepudding · 15/09/2014 18:42

Scortja, my DS has been doing the reading recovery programme for a few months now. Like your DS he memorises books. He hit a wall fairly early on whereby the books in the level above are too long for him to memorise.

My son does enjoy his reading recovery lessons as it gets him out of the noisy classroom for a while!

mrz · 15/09/2014 19:34

As a SENCO I disagree that 1-1 isn't to be sniffed at... high quality 1-1 interventions, provided in addition to high quality classroom teaching (not as a substitute) is worthwhile, whereas others simply serve to widen the gap.

tara49 · 16/09/2014 00:07

HI
If he's been selected then he's fortunate to be amonst the very lowest ability, I say fortunate because he were just above the lowest group then he wouldn't get access to reading recovery. It's an amazing opportunity to have your child one to one tutored for 30 mins every day by an expert reading teacher - embrace it.
The programme is fantastic and you should be invited in to observe a session - if you are not, then request it so you can support at home.
unless he has special needs then his reading will improve rapidly and he will be in the middle group or above by the end of the programme - don't cry, it's brilliant and he will succeed.

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