Reading recovery programme?

[scortja]

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..

RafaIsTheKingOfClay:The fact that it's aimed at the bottom 20% of any cohort regardless of ability or specific issues should be enough to put anyone off

It is aimed at the bottom 20% of cohort meaning the ability, not regardless of it and as for specific issues - it ignores issues and can be tailored around the individual as every child deserves the opportunity to read. It's a fantastic programme, I don't teach it now but have done so for many years and for the schools that don't have it in place, the reason is expense - it's very costly but hugely effective.

It is aimed at the bottom 20% of cohort meaning the ability

You've misunderstood my point. It's the bottom 20% of cohort meaning the ability in comparison to the rest of their cohort, not in terms of ability in terms of age related expectations.

An interesting quote

"Teaching Assistants with almost no training and minimal teaching materials with which to teach and working in less than desirable conditions, outperformed the Reading Recovery teachers when their students' overall achievement was compared. Also, Reading Recovery teachers, when their Reading Recovery students are compared with their Chapter I students, tend to get better results with the regular Chapter I program than with Reading Recovery. This has been the case every year since 1985-86, the year Reading Recovery was implemented in Canton." (Fincher, 1991)

mrz, I really don't think a 23 year old quote relating to schools in Ohio bears any connection with the OP's current issue! I think all views have been covered comprehensively within this post, and I'm sure the OP has got a balanced view of the potential pros and cons of RR without needing to step back in time.

You didn't think a current research document relevant either ... The evidence hasn't changed in a quarter of a century yet some head teachers are still clinging to an ineffective model

Isn't it time we learnt from the past rather than continue to make the same mistakes?

scortja:

My DD1 (now Y7) went into something called 'rocket readers' - she wasn't outright told it was a reading recovery programme - but basically it was intensive work with a TA (former teacher).

This came in Y4 - she was literally struggling to read books her Y2 sister was whizzing through.

So first off - be glad they caught a possible problem early.

Second - nearly 6 is still very young, so it isn't any particularly failure on your DS' or your part. Indeed in some places formal education doesn't start until the year you turn 7.

Third - reading recovery schemes often are outside the class in a quiet place and frequently in small groups or one to one. I don't know if you've been in for reading mornings - but classrooms can be really noisy - and that can be a difficult place to learn in. So going somewhere quiet and focusing on reading may just get him over the hurdle he's having at the moment.

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What can you do:

Well my box of tricks includes:

Make reading a nightly routine (we opt for after bath/ before bed)

Alternate reading - don't make your DC do all the work. We started off with DD1 reading a few of the easier words or words she knew (The, and, with, without, The End, etc...) and I'd read the rest.

We then moved on to sounding out easier words. The [giant] cat sat by the [brook]. I would read words in [ ] - but she would read the rest.

We then moved to sounding out one full sentence. If she got it right I'd read the rest of the paragraph.

WE then moved to reading whole paragraphs, Is she got that right I'd read the next page.

We then went for every other paragraph. and then every other page (pictures count!).

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alphablocks: silly CBEEBIES cartoon with very catchy tunes about how to blend sounds. DD1 stumbled across it in late Y3 when DD2 was looking at some for homework. www.bbc.co.uk/cbeebies/alphablocks/

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find out what the phonics system is that your school is using - most have support materials. Our school used Jolly Phonics which has a brilliant set of 7 workbooks (more like colouring books) - that help with learning sounds, letter formation (traditional 3 hatched lines to help get heights right) and had lots of fun colouring to do. DD2 used these and really got off to a flying start.

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Don't be precious about only reading 'good quality books'/ school books. If the school books are not your DC's cup of tea/ read them a bit (as a warm up) but go on to read something more interesting.

Lots of the children's cartoon shows have magazines - and many of them have stories/ quizzes/ all sorts - that is great reading practice but won't feel like reading.

Cartoons/ graphic novels also involve a lot of reading - but again don't feel like it. I was snobby about these - but DD1 insisted on a Pokemon graphic novel and I relented. About 3 weeks later she came racing out of Y5 to say - 'Mum, you won't believe it, they've sat me with my arch nemesis on our starting tables!' I fear arch nemesis was an apt description of this child. My apologies Pokemon graphic novels!

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Being told your child is going to get extra help shouldn't be upsetting - you truly should be glad that your school has this in place and is offering it so swiftly.

You also should know that it isn't permanent. Getting help now may mean that in a year he's back with his mainstream class and maybe even progressing up the tables/ sets.

DD1 finished KS2 at NC L1 across the board. I was told that 'I needed to just understand that DD1 was a bit dim' by the HT - I can assure you that the problem was that I didn't appreciate how DD1 learns - better in a quiet environment/ best through doing it herself/ and responds well to visual things: clips/ cartoons/ drawings/ video games.

We worked really hard in Y3/ Y4 to turn things around - but we did. Genuinely - don't see it as a verdict - but as someone (a friend) offering you help and a warning to you that you should try and do a bit more at home/ take it more seriously.

Sincerely, I've never regretted making more time for reading with my girls. My only regret is it is clear DD1 (now Y7) has rather outgrown evening reading with Mum or Dad - which is a bit bittersweet. She will occasionally (we're finishing up the Lemony Snicket Series of Unfortuante Events series) - but these days is happy to just read on her own. But I know she's getting a bit big to be reading to her old Mum.

PastSellByDate some helpful and interesting suggestions for the OP there!

mrz the saying more than one way to skin a cat dates back to 1889

My dd was put on the RR programme in Year 1. Her reading wasn't progressing, despite good phonics teaching, I had expressed concern for several months about her level and when they told me she had been selected with four others to go on the scheme, I could have cried, but with relief something was being done!

DD was picked because of her age as there is an age band that it is most successful with and she was slap bang in the middle, and they said, because they expected her level to be higher, based on the fact she was very articulate!

Everyday she had a 1-1 session of 20 mins, the specialist RR teacher worked with her, they made books with DD's own stories, writing on sticky labels over the words she may have got wrong, they looked at sentences cut up and reassembled them etc. each evening she had a short book to read, some cut up sentences to put together. It took around 15 mins., no more.

I was invited to go to see the teacher working with her and observe what they did, the teacher was still undergoing her own training and one day I went with my dd to the main centre, as the teacher was being assessed and asked if she could use dd for her assessment. It was fascinating see her develop and grow in confidence.

My dd was off the scheme and reading well ahead of her group within three months, they then used her space for another child. It was the best thing that could have happened.

The head later told me that the scheme had worked well in all but one of the children and she was impressed with it. The child it didn't work with - although she didn't tell me who - didn't have as much support at home as the others.

Take it OP, grab their hands off for it. 20 mins 1-1 is not go be sniffed at in these busy school days, it isn't going to hurt and it us likely to work.

Can you say 'no thanks' when they are offering help?!

Oh, my DD is in Yr5 now, still one of the best readers in her class, reads with expression, fluency and understanding.

Most of all she loves to read for pleasure, in fact the library rang today to say some books she wanted were in and she was extremely excited. 4 years ago, I thought she was going to be a 'slow uninterested' reader!

Fortunately we stopped skinning cats a long time ago infant head unfortunately we hang onto teaching methods shown to be ineffective at best for decades

ineffective mrz? I am 37 and can read perfectly, in fact I was reading famous five books by the time I was 7 and had a reading age of 15+ at the start of secondary school. Teaching reading without phonics/ using mixed methods works for the vast majority of children. OK I am happy to accept that pure phonics works for a larger number but that's not a reason to dismiss other methods entirely. Particularly if some children make slower progress with just phonics.

Gah I can't believe I've posted on one of these phonics threads yuck and I won't be back to check the puritanical replies.

op hope it is beneficial for ds, after all that's the main thing. Well alongside children enjoying it and learning to read for pleasure that is.

The child it didn't work with - although she didn't tell me who - didn't have as much support at home as the others.

Sorry, but this makes me really angry. There is absolutely no reason why children who don't get as much support at home shouldn't learn to read. In the case of children on RR, they are getting 30mins 1:1 with a highly trained teacher which is over and above what almost all of the rest of the children in the class would be getting at home and should negate that argument.

Perhaps if HTs and teachers stopped using this as excuse then we really could get all children reading.

Rafa - this may be the case, I can't say I was enamoured with the HT, as we took the RR finished the year and then moved our daughter out of the school!

However, my thoughts on the scheme remain.

readingsupport.edgehill.ac.uk/rs-for-schools/reading-recovery/

This explains it perfectly, it was more about observing how my dd learnt, encouraging and supporting that. She is a 'visual' learner, which I think is why RR particularly suited her, although phonics were included.

By the way, I learnt with the old Janet and John / Peter and Jayne books, didn't have a phonic lesson in my life and remember I was almost in my teens until I knew the phonic alphabet!

I read anything and everything and with speed! I think this is why I was so concerned about my dd, as reading is so important to me.

ilc.ioe.ac.uk/rr.html

Worth looking at some UK research and not always looking back at dated reports, from what I understand RR today has evolved and changed.

It is fine for teachers on here to 'rubbish' a scheme, or method of working a school may have - I see it all the time on threads, saying 'you want to challenge the teacher over this or that' or 'I wouldn't do it that way, but expect this.....' However, some of us don't always have a choice or a second option, or even a 'good' school, so we have to be guided by those we entrust our children to every day and trust them to do the best for our child.

Since Reading Recovery hasn't been around that long tobysmum77 you can hardly credit it with your success.

The IOE is the UK base for Reading Recovery ... hardly unbiased

Try the research from New Zealand (home of RR) and Australia, both of which have a much longer history of using RR.

(2007) A review of 20 years' research into Reading Recovery, just published in the International Journal of Disability, Development and Education, says the program has not delivered all it promised, particularly long-term benefits for students and a significant reduction in the need for special education services.

"The success of the program appears to be inversely related to the severity of the reading problem. A student with a severe problem is unlikely to be a success," it says.

Results published by the NSW Education Department on the basic skills test conducted in years 3 and 5 show that only one in three ex-Reading Recovery students reached the state average.

(2013) What they found is that despite major efforts by the Ministry of Education, and more than $40 million spent each year on the Reading Recovery programme, New Zealand’s reading achievement scores have not improved over the past decade.

Professor James Chapman says the current approach to teaching literacy is not working.

“New Zealand’s strategy has failed,” Professor Chapman says. “The current approach is not working for too many children – and we need to change it.”

He and his colleagues say the failure of the strategy is not the fault of teachers and principals, but the result of misguided policy decisions. They recommend major scientifically-supported changes to New Zealand’s approach to literacy education.

The strategy was recommended by a Literacy Taskforce established by the Government in the late 1990s. Reading Recovery has been in place for 30 years and targets the bottom 15 per cent of learners.

mrz, I think everyone on here has realised that you don't rate RR as an reading strategy, so I'm not sure what you hope to gain by posting what is essentially the same message over and over?

More than you have to gain by commenting every time InfantSchoolHead

I happen to think ECaR is expensive, but worth it. You, mrz, disagree. I get that. So be it.

There really is no need for you to constantly repeat your point.

Our school is currently 4 years into the program and our evidence is showing its value. If that changes, I will change my mind.

For now, we'll go based on the evidence we collect, with children we know. My view is that Reading Recovery and ECaR is an expensive program, but worth it.

This is an interesting thread as yet again more posters are being flamed by the pro phonics mafia! Is no thread on reading safe from their continued barracking? How dare anyone else have an opinion contrary to theirs!

I always think it is very telling that the RR organisation never allows research studies which would directly compare RR with rigorous phonics based interventions.

Also, that RR, by their own figures, consistently fails with some 20% of children, who are 'referred' for further intervention. For an intervention which claims it works with the 'hardest to teach' children this is not at all impressive.

The only thing they have right is that children with reading difficulties should be identified early for intervention.

Interesting that I can be considered the phonics mafia all on my own MillyMollyMama ... Firstly I'm the mother of a child let down by mixed methods as used by RR, secondly I'm a Y1 with a vested interest in teaching all children to read and thirdly I'm a SENCO who often has to pick up the children who arrive in our school having being failed by RR.

The simple fact is schools using RR aren't meeting their legal duty to their pupils ... it seems some heads are happy to break the law.

SeptemberBabies what percentage of your pupils achieve level 4 or above/

I am not aware of any rigorous research which has directly compared phonics based interventions with others. Every link that Maizie has directed us to over the years for this has always turned out to be to just more opinion.

Plenty of parents on here have reported that RR has helped their children, and also quite a few that phonics failed theirs.

And as Paddlinglikehell says:
... from what I understand RR today has evolved and changed.
The greater push for phonics since 2007 is likely to have made it more phonic than it used to be. The teachers delivering it are not robots.

Apart from that, any child aged nearly 6 will have had plenty of phonics already. The best help after that, if help is still needed, is to establish what a particular child is having difficulties with. And the best way to do that is on a one to one basis. I found that merely identifying the words that caused problems (the likes of through, thought, although) and working on those made a huge difference.

I think there are two parallel conversations going on here - one about whether the OP should accept the intervention her DS has been offered, and one about the relative effectiveness of RR vs phonics-based interventions. I'm not sure it's helpful to the OP to conflate the two questions.

The reality is that a) the OP has been offered RR, and b) most interventions have a positive effect, though some may have a bigger effect than others. It's therefore likely that taking part in RR will benefit OP's DS, though possible that it won't benefit him as much as a phonics-based programme would. Surely the right thing to do, then, is to try RR, and support the school and the child, while keeping a close eye on his progress and not being afraid to discuss alternative approaches with the school if it's not proving as effective as they'd hoped?