Reading Recovery®

What is Reading Recovery?

Reading Recovery is a highly effective short-term intervention of one-on-one tutoring for low-achieving first graders. The intervention is most effective when it is available to all students who need it and is used as a supplement to good classroom teaching. In Reading Recovery, individual students receive a half-hour lesson each school day for 12 to 20 weeks with a specially trained Reading Recovery teacher. As soon as students can read within the average range of their class and demonstrate that they can continue to achieve, their lessons are discontinued, and new students begin individual instruction.

How was Reading Recovery developed?

Reading Recovery was developed by New Zealand educator and researcher Dr. Marie M. Clay.

Dr. Clay conducted observational research in the mid-1960s that enabled her to design ways to detect children’s early reading difficulties. In the mid-1970s, she developed Reading Recovery procedures with teachers and tested the program in New Zealand. Since its success in New Zealand, Reading Recovery has spread to Australia, the United States, Canada and Great Britain. More than one million first graders have been served in the United States since Reading Recovery was introduced here in 1984.

Training

The foundation of the training model for Reading Recovery are the university training sites located across the world. In North America, there are presently twenty three university training centers in Canada and the United States. Shippensburg University is one of these sites and offers training to school districts in Maryland, Virginia, West Virginia and Pennsylvania. The training offered is two-fold: 1. teacher leader training which is comprised of one year of full-time post-master's course work (18 credits) and 2. teacher training which is offered at established teacher training sites (school based sites) across the Mid-Atlantic states. The Reading Recovery Council of North America is the support organization for the Reading Recovery program. Their site offers information on training, research, materials, and advocacy.