A Review of Reading Recovery

• Introduction to Reading Recovery
• The Goal of Reading Recovery
• An Investment in the Professional Skills of Teachers
• The Research Base for Reading Recovery
• Collecting and Reporting Reading Recovery Data
    -  Measures Used in Reading Recovery
    -  Discontinuing Procedures
    -  Counting Every Child
• Two Positive Outcomes of Reading Recovery
• Implementation Factors Affecting Reading Recovery Success
• Issues of Trademark and Royalty Free License

Introduction to Reading Recovery

Reading Recovery is an early intervention program designed to assist the lowest achieving children in first grade who are having difficulty learning to read and write. Children meet individually with a specially trained teacher for 30 minutes each day for an average of 12 - 20 weeks. The goal is for the children to develop effective reading and writing strategies. During this relatively short-term intervention, these children make faster than average progress so that they can catch up with their peers and continue to work on their own within an average group setting in the regular classroom.

Reading Recovery is also available to children whose initial reading instruction is in Spanish. Descubriendo La Lectura (DLL), or Reading Recovery in Spanish, is now well established in a number of sites across the United States. Information within this publication applies to Descubriendo La Lectura as well as to Reading Recovery.

The key to the successful implementation of the program resides in the training model. The two-tiered process begins with an intensive series of post-masters graduate level courses for teacher leaders at a university training center recognized by the North American Trainers Group. The teacher leader training model involves (a) a study of the program procedures that includes working daily with students across the course of a year; (b) an in-depth study of the theoretical foundations upon which the procedures are based; (c) comprehensive study of seminal and recent theories and research focusing on the reading and writing processes; (d) training in the process of working with adult learners; and (e) training in management and administrative services required to successfully implement the program. Following successful completion of the training year, teacher leaders return to their school districts to train teachers who will work with the lowest-achieving first-grade readers.

Training at the second tier, or teacher training, is also a year-long commitment. Teachers enroll in a graduate level course taught by a certified teacher leader. Through clinical and peer-critiquing experiences, teachers learn to observe and describe student and teacher behaviors and develop skills in making moment-to-moment decisions to inform instruction.

The research-based professional development courses for teachers and teacher leaders focus on analyzing children's reading and writing behaviors and relating those behaviors to more general theories of literacy and learning. Teachers-in-training and teacher leaders-in-training build theoretical models of literacy learning that they use to guide their work with children. Through on-going required professional development classes, Reading Recovery teachers and teacher leaders continue to refine and further develop their skills to effectively teach children who are "at risk" of failing to learn how to read and write.

Reading Recovery is an effective safety net within a comprehensive approach to solving education problems. No classroom program in the first grade will be adequate for all children. Each educational system has two problems to solve: (a) how to deliver good first instruction in literacy and (b) what kind of supplementary opportunity should be provided for children who are low achieving even in a good instructional program.2 Acting as a safety net within a good instructional literacy program, Reading Recovery can be part of a strong, comprehensive approach to bring all students to literacy.

Reading Recovery provides a window of opportunity for the lowest achieving children to accomplish the goal of literacy for all children. In this section, we discuss seven important realities that policy makers, administrators, and all educators need to know about Reading Recovery in order to accomplish this goal.

 

Training for Reading Recovery professionals on three levels...
TEACHERS enables teachers in apprenticeship for one year to learn to design a series of lessons tailored to the specific needs of an individual child and to make effective, moment-by-moment decisions. supports effective teaching of the hardest-to-teach children. provides a way for teachers to continue to study and learn and consult teacher leaders about children whose learning is puzzling.	TEACHER LEADERS provides for expert professionals called teacher leaders to train and support Reading Recovery teachers; advise on all aspects of delivery of the program in a school, a district, or a consortium of districts; and create understanding at all levels of the potential and limits of Reading Recovery. creates teacher leaders who carry out local training programs, support a local implementation of quality, and guide the instruction of the most difficult children.	TRAINERS provides a third level of leadership of university-based professors as trainers who prepare the teacher leaders at university centers, advise about new developments, and provide guidance on issues that may facilitate or impede the delivery of effective programs. creates and maintains a trainer network that actively guides all Reading Recovery programs through any necessary adaptations and adjustments to the program that may need to occur over time as knowledge and society change.

The training for Reading Recovery professionals acknowledges that at each level of training the roles of professionals, as well as their use of theory, are different.⁴

Reading Recovery has one clear goal: "...to dramatically reduce the number of learners who have extreme difficulty with literacy learning and the cost of these learners to educational systems."³

Reading Recovery addresses the needs of a particular group of students -- those first graders who score lowest on measures of achievement in reading and writing. It helps the majority of those children work successfully in the classroom program. It is not designed to raise the overall achievement of an age cohort but rather to reduce the numbers of children who are having extreme difficulty. It cannot guarantee progress in spite of unsatisfactory subsequent teaching, nor is it intended to be a model for changing classroom instruction.

Reading Recovery is an investment in the professional skills of teachers.

If we can focus our energies on providing this generation of teachers with the kinds of knowledge and skills they need to help students succeed, we will have made an enormous contribution to America's future.⁵

A recent large-scale study revealed that every additional dollar spent on raising teacher quality netted greater student achievement gains than did any other use of school resources.⁶ Few educational programs offer a more powerful teacher education process than Reading Recovery with a full academic year of intensive training.

The training of Reading Recovery teachers is provided by specially trained Reading Recovery teacher leaders who have been prepared in a year-long residential program at a recognized university training center. Teachers also train for an academic year while they work with children and fulfill other professional responsibilities. In the United States, graduate-level university credit is awarded for successful completion of the Reading Recovery teacher training program. Training continues after the initial year, with a built-in renewal system to update teachers on new ways to be effective in their work.⁷

Reading Recovery training sessions involve extensive use of a one-way glass screen through which teachers watch each other work with children as they put their observations and analyses into words. In their conversations, they articulate their questions and dilemmas. The process challenges assumptions about children's learning; teachers think critically about the art of teaching. They "need to become more flexible and tentative, to observe constantly and alter their assumptions in line with what they record as children work. They need to challenge their own thinking continually."⁸

Reading Recovery teachers learn to make teaching decisions "on the run" while teaching. Research on Reading Recovery teaching⁹ indicates that Reading Recovery teachers seem to know "just what to do" in response to individual children. No time is wasted because the teacher is working from what the child knows and finding powerful examples that will help these initially struggling learners make leaps in learning.

The key is extensive, rigorous training that allows the teacher to develop a repertoire of actions and decisions and then to adjust each child's program to help make the most of her or his knowledge base and strengths. Clay¹⁰ cites educator Pearson's comments about the implications of teacher education in Reading Recovery:

Reading Recovery has managed to operationalize that vague notion that teachers ought to reflect on their own practice. That behind the glass play by play analysis and the collegial debriefing with the teacher after her teaching session represent some of the best teacher education I have witnessed in my 28 year history in the field.

A body of research¹¹ indicates that Reading Recovery teacher training has a powerful and long lasting impact on the teachers who participate. The skills and knowledge teachers develop in Reading Recovery contribute to their ongoing learning and result in an impact on children across time. There is at least anecdotal evidence that these learnings also influence their work in other settings.

There is also evidence that the communication between Reading Recovery teachers and classroom teachers supports literacy teaching in a school. In a change study,¹² classroom teachers cited the benefits of collaborating about individual children with a knowledgeable colleague. The investment in the professional skills of Reading Recovery teachers, then, appears to go beyond their work with individual children.

Reading Recovery is a research-based approach to helping children who are the lowest achievers.

Reading Recovery has a strong research base. The structure and design of the program are consistent with a large body of substantial research on how children learn to read and write. In addition, empirical studies have been conducted on the outcomes of the program itself.

• Reading Recovery is based on the best of current knowledge about how children become literate.

Reading Recovery has its roots in Marie Clay's studies of young children's reading and writing behaviors in the 1960s.¹³ Clay's basic research in classrooms and clinics, along with intensive studies in other disciplines, became available in the United States through academic publications in the 1970s. Clay also designed and tested observation techniques that have been widely used by classroom teachers and researchers. These instruments comprise An Observation Survey of Early Literacy Achievement.¹⁴

Clay's observation instruments are useful for classroom teachers, reading teachers, evaluators, and researchers because of their sound measurement qualities. All of the tasks were developed in research studies. They have the qualities of sound assessment instruments checked for reliability, validity, and discrimination indices. This work has led to research by others in the United States,¹⁵ Australia, and England.¹⁶ A unique feature of Reading Recovery is that every teacher, every day, records the detail of every lesson with every child. Similar teacher observations provide sound research data for inspection and analysis of the changes that occur as individuals work through their series of lessons.

A second research program was undertaken by Clay to explore this question: "What is possible when we change the design and delivery of traditional education for the children that teachers find hard to teach?"¹⁷ A number of studies explored this question, beginning with the development project in 1976 and followed by field trials, follow-up studies, replication studies, analyses of lesson content, monitoring studies, and subgroup studies.¹⁸ The Ministry of Education has monitored the New Zealand program nationally since 1984.¹⁹

Therefore, Reading Recovery is built on a foundation of more than 30 years of research about how young low-achieving children take on the process of reading and writing. Because Reading Recovery is a dynamic program, it has changed in response to growth in understandings about how children learn to read and write while remaining grounded in a sound, well developed theory. For example, teaching for phonemic awareness and visual analysis were significant aspects of the program from its beginning. Differences in subsequent editions of the published materials for Reading Recovery training²⁰ continue to reveal refinements in the procedures as more research information becomes available.

Change in Reading Recovery is a deliberate, careful, ongoing process based on continuous research. Over the years, refinements in practice have been based on current research in language and literacy learning and teaching as well as on research and evaluation directly related to the program.

Changes in Reading Recovery practice are gradually assimilated through required, ongoing professional development at all levels of training. The implementation of programs and training courses for professionals are constantly under scrutiny, with studies designed to test different models of delivery. Because of the dynamic nature of the underlying theory and its responsiveness to new knowledge arising in related disciplines, as well as the ongoing evaluation of student outcomes and training schemes, elements of Reading Recovery are revised when appropriate.

As knowledge changes around us, Reading Recovery professionals must continue to ask what new discussions of theory and research are relevant for a preventative approach to early intervention. One important example which supports that approach was provided by Vellutino and his colleagues.²¹ By comparing the cognitive abilities and experiential deficits of children who were easy and difficult to remediate, they were able to recommend that

...to render a diagnosis of specific reading disability in the absence of early and labor-intensive remedial reading that has been tailored to a child's individual learning needs is, at best, a hazardous and dubious enterprise...²²

Reading Recovery professionals have contributed to the advance of understanding by their contributions to research projects as diverse as applying Vygotskyan theory to early literacy instruction (Hobsbaum, Peters, & Sylva on tutoring early writing)²³ and school improvement (Hill, Rowe, & Crevola on providing a safety net for children with difficulties in a thrust to provide improved classroom instruction).²⁴

• Research on Reading Recovery is ongoing.

In the United States and other countries, researchers continue to examine different questions and to design and conduct studies that inform the teaching and implementation of Reading Recovery.²⁵ For example, U.S. researchers have implemented empirical studies that compare Reading Recovery with other approaches, as well as qualitative studies probing aspects of teaching, learning, and implementation. Notable studies are included in Section 3 and in the list of references.

Reading Recovery teacher leaders and administrators at every site systematically collect and report data on every child to a central national evaluation center.

"Replication is important in all sciences because it is through replication that scientists verify research results."²⁶ Reading Recovery replicates its effect at the level of individual subjects, and the same results are achieved again and again with different children, different teachers, and in different places. Altogether, if a result is seen consistently across time and across locations, we can predict with some confidence that the results will occur. Hiebert, who was critical of initial Reading Recovery research and evaluation studies, has stated that "...a high percentage of Reading Recovery tutees can orally read at least a first-grade text at the end of Grade 1... Once a program is in place, there appears to be considerable fidelity in the results."²⁷

Unique to Reading Recovery, evaluation data are collected on the implementation of the program for every child. By the end of the 1996-1997 school year, data had been reported to the National Data Evaluation Center (NDEC) for Reading Recovery as well as to the U.S. Department of Education on 436,249 children. The more replications a program can document, the more reliable the results, and the more confidence researchers have in the procedures and interventions that produced those results.²⁸

General procedures for data collection:

1. In consultation with classroom teachers, the Reading Recovery teacher identifies individual students who need a check on performance, administers six assessments, and selects the lowest children.

2. The Reading Recovery teacher fills out a computer scan form with vital data on each child and entry scores.

3. The Reading Recovery teacher provides daily lessons to each child selected.

4. As children exit the program, the Reading Recovery teacher records exit scores on the scan form.

5. As new children enter the program, each child's entry data are recorded on a new scan form.

6. At the end of the first grade year, all children are again tested and their scores recorded on scan forms.

7. A separate scan form is completed to report contextual variables for the Reading Recovery site.

8. Scan forms are checked by district officials and sent to the National Data Evaluation Center (NDEC) for Reading Recovery. Scan forms report the end-of-year status of each child (for example, whether service was successfully discontinued because the child met performance criteria).

9. Data are analyzed and aggregated at the National Data Evaluation Center for Reading Recovery.

10. Results are sent back to each site so that local reports may incorporate the information into their local decision making.

11. Each site reports local data to local officials, to university training centers, and to appropriate school officials and policy decision makers.

12. A national report is prepared and published annually.²⁹

At every step of the process, data are checked and verified.

Measures used in Reading Recovery

Measures used in An Observation Survey of Early Literacy Achievement³⁰ and the Spanish version Instrumento de Observación de Logros de la Lecto-Escritura Inicial³¹ are used by classroom teachers and Reading Recovery teachers to inform their teaching. These measures provide a reliable and valid way to assess young children's literacy knowledge and to detect evidence of progress in the early stages of literacy learning.

The Survey is comprised of six literacy tasks with established validity and reliability (see An Observation Survey of Early Literacy Achievement). The neutral observer records exactly what a child does on each reading or writing task with appropriate coding categories. The survey tasks have four characteristics in common with good measurement instruments. They provide

• a standard task
• a standard way of administering the task
• ways of knowing when we can rely on observations and make reliable comparisons
• a task that is like a "real world" task, relating to what the child is likely to do in the classroom (establishing validity).

An Observation Survey of Early Literacy Achievement

Measures in An Observation Survey of Early Literacy Achievement are listed below, with information on reliability provided in Endnotes. Measures in Spanish vary only in the number of items for some tasks.

1. Letter Identification³² Children are asked to identify 54 characters, the upper and lower case standard letters as well as the print form of a and g.

2. 2. Word Test³³ Children read a list of frequently occurring words. Three alternative lists are available for testing and retesting.

3. Concepts About Print³⁴ The examiner reads a short book and invites children to perform a variety of tasks to find out what the child has learned about the way spoken language is put into print. Two versions are available, Sand and Stones. The test reflects important concepts to be acquired by children in the beginning stages of learning to read. As children move from nonreading to reading, changes occur in the scores on this measure.

4. Writing Vocabulary³⁵ Children are asked to write all of the words they can within a maximum 10-minute limit. Within guidelines for testing, examiners are permitted to prompt as needed.

5. Hearing and Recording Sounds in Words³⁶ The examiner reads a short sentence or two and asks the child to write the words. Children's scores represent every sound recorded accurately in this assessment of phonemic awareness and/or orthographic awareness.

6. Text Reading³⁷ Children are asked to read a series of increasingly more difficult texts that they have not seen before. The tester provides a minimal, scripted introduction and records reading behaviors using a running record. The texts used for Reading Recovery testing in the U.S. are not used in instruction, nor were they created for Reading Recovery. Texts were drawn from established basal systems and have, over the years, been shown to be a stable measure of reading performance. Texts represent escalating gradients of difficulty.

The criteria for a child's successful completion of a Reading Recovery program include the ability to read texts that have

• long stretches of print with few pictures.

• full pages of print without pictures.

• complex story structures that require sophisticated ways of understanding.

• complex ideas that require background knowledge to understand and interpret.

• many multisyllable words.

• new words to decode without help from illustrations.

• some vocabulary words that are unfamiliar.

The text reading measure is not an equal interval scale; that is, there are smaller differences in the beginning levels than at upper levels. For beginning readers, it is necessary to look at the reader's progress in more detail.

Criteria and Process for Discontinuing Service to Children

Reading Recovery provides one-to-one instruction until a child's performance shows behavioral evidence that the extra help can be discontinued. Educators involved in the program often talk about the child being able to perform within average or above average levels in classroom literacy instruction, and that is true. In classrooms where the average text reading level is too low to support the child's continued growth, discontinuing levels will need to be higher than the average. Therefore, there is another important criterion for discontinuing. The child must have a self-extending system for literacy. This means that the child is able to use a variety of flexible strategies for problem solving in reading and writing text. It is expected that the child will continue to improve in reading and writing skills and will learn from reading and writing in regular classroom instruction.

Discontinuing Reading Recovery service is a carefully considered decision that is collaboratively made by the classroom teacher, the Reading Recovery teacher, and other members of a Reading Recovery team. In schools, the team typically includes the building administrator, Reading Recovery teacher, classroom teachers, and others. The team communicates closely with the teacher leader, who operates across many schools.

At the time of discontinuing, a systematic process is followed:

1. Through consultation between the classroom teacher and the Reading Recovery teacher, the child is recognized as performing successfully in the classroom. The child is able to read and write within expected average ranges or a little above average at that point of time in the school year.

2. A trained assessor, someone different from the Reading Recovery teacher who has been working with the child, administers the range of assessments. (Observation Survey)

3. Through consultation, the educators involved decide whether the child is independently using reading and writing processes with comprehension, rapid word solving, and fluency.

4. Reading Recovery tutoring is discontinued; data are recorded on scan forms; and the child's family members are informed.

5. The Reading Recovery teacher monitors the child's progress regularly until the educational team is assured that the child is continuing to make progress at a satisfactory rate.

Every child is counted!

The national data set includes data on every single child who enters the program, regardless of program outcome. In the early days of data collection, Reading Recovery implementers attempted to define a "program" for a child in order to determine the effect of the treatment. If a child had instruction for only a few days or a few weeks, it was difficult to say that the program had time to work. Therefore, "program" children were defined for research purposes as children having at least 60 Reading Recovery lessons. While the status of all children served by the program has always been documented locally and sent to the National Data Evaluation Center, national reports were published related to two groups: (1) the children who discontinued from the program; and (2) children who had the opportunity for a full program (both discontinued and not discontinued).

Reporting practices have changed to more clearly describe the action taken for each child served by Reading Recovery. Status categories, beginning in the 1998-1999 school year, are as follows:

• children who successfully discontinued from the program
• children who had complete programs of 12-20 weeks (with an opportunity to participate for 20 weeks) who were recommended for assessment and consideration for longer-term assistance or other actions to support the child
• children who moved during their programs
• children remaining in the program at the end of the school year without time for completion of program

Exceptions to these categories are extremely rare and are carefully documented with a narrative explanation.

Educators involved in Reading Recovery are concerned about the number of children who have insufficient time to complete the program before the school year ends. Efforts are under way in many sites to extend the school year for these children, to increase the effectiveness and efficiency of current programs, and to consider flexible use of resources to provide more teaching time within the school year.

Reading Recovery has two positive outcomes.

The results for children in Reading Recovery can be viewed in two important ways. Both outcomes represent actions that benefit the child.

Positive Outcome #1: The child no longer requires extra help, and service is "discontinued."

Discontinuing is a systematic process by which a child is determined to no longer need Reading Recovery teaching in special 30-minute sessions. The child is an independent reader and writer who needs only a good classroom literacy program to continue to make progress.

Positive Outcome #2: A recommendation is made for additional assessment. Appropriate school staff members collaborate to plan future learning opportunities for the child.

Even children who do not make the accelerated progress needed for discontinuing (they do not "catch up" with peers or meet criterion measures) make progress in Reading Recovery. Moreover, positive subsequent action is initiated to help such children keep making progress. Educators have learned much about the child through the Reading Recovery diagnostic processes and can take action to recommend future actions to support the child.

Reading Recovery evaluation data show that the large majority of children served in the program experience the first outcome; a smaller proportion are in the second category. Instead of waiting or allowing children to struggle, educators in Reading Recovery assume responsibility that something positive is going to happen for every child coming into the program. A secondary outcome of the process is that people work together to identify children who might be at risk and provide the necessary extra support at a critical time. There is recognition that everyone is responsible for every child.

Well-planned implementation determines the success of Reading Recovery.

Smart administrators protect their investment by assuring a high quality implementation of Reading Recovery. Consideration must be given to the processes involved in "opening up" the existing system to accommodate and support this innovation.

Implementation factors include the following:

Shared ownership. In order to sustain an innovation, basic understandings about the purposes, rationales, and processes of the innovation must be shared.³⁸ In addition to shared understandings, ownership must be felt by the stakeholders who collaborate to provide the structures for successful implementation within the system. All stakeholders must be perceived to have a responsibility for the success of each child served.

Level of coverage. Each school or system must determine the number of children needing the service. A school or system has reached full coverage or full implementation when there is sufficient Reading Recovery teacher time to serve all children defined as needing the service in the school or in the system. Systems move to full coverage over several years. It is only at the stage of full coverage that a dramatic decrease in the number of children with literacy difficulties will be realized.

Partial implementation is a temporary condition and a period that reveals all the implementation difficulties. It is a time for persistence and a focus on individual success stories. As schools move toward full coverage, many problems disappear.

Flexible staffing plans support full implementation. Schools with a significant number of trained Reading Recovery teachers have the capacity to serve all needy children within a flexible staffing framework.

Informed administration. As with any school or system commitment, the role of the administrator is critical. In Reading Recovery, the system-level administrators and the school-level administrators must be knowledgeable and collaborative in working with all stakeholders on behalf of the children needing the intervention service.

Continuous attention to quality in training and teaching. As stated earlier, Reading Recovery is an investment in teachers and teacher training. Selection of the highest quality teacher leaders and teachers is essential for a successful program. Initial training at both levels must be strong. An important feature of Reading Recovery is the ongoing nature of training through continuing contact sessions. The quality of these sessions will also impact the success of the program.

Administrators are cautioned to refrain from stretching the roles of the Reading Recovery teacher leaders and teachers beyond their training expertise and beyond their ability to continue to perform their primary role successfully. When this happens, program results may suffer.

Sustained focus on the goal of Reading Recovery and its attainment. All stakeholders must retain the focus of Reading Recovery -- to reduce dramatically the number of children unable to work within average levels within their classrooms. There is a temptation to focus on other worthy goals that may interfere with the primary goal of supporting successful performance of children.

Examination of data to uncover and solve problems. Each school and each system involved in Reading Recovery will benefit from a careful examination of student outcomes. This exploration will document the program's effectiveness as well as identify problem areas in implementation that need to be addressed.

Implementation is important in any venture. "The failure to institutionalize an innovation and build it into the normal structures and practices of the organization underlies the disappearance of many reforms."³⁹ "In too many cases, where ideas deserve consideration, the processes through which they were implemented were self-defeating."⁴⁰

In Reading Recovery, factors related to establishing a new program in a school and district context are not ignored. Although implementation issues are still being examined and refined, a structured process exists to assist local educators in implementing a consistent, high quality program.

Reading Recovery is a not-for-profit program that involves collaboration among schools, districts, and universities.

Reading Recovery is not an independent business venture; it is partnership between school, districts, and universities. In the United States, the name "Reading Recovery" has been a trademark and/or service mark of The Ohio State University since December 18, 1990, when action was taken to identify sites that meet the essential criteria for a Reading Recovery program.

In the educational system, true innovation is difficult to achieve. Innovations appear to come and go with little lasting impact. Any time an innovation is adopted, it inevitably means that there must be adjustments in the system. In the case of Reading Recovery, for example, educators had to provide for one-to-one teaching time and space, for a long initial training and ongoing training of teachers, for a special facility so that the observation of lessons could take place, and for the transportation of children for "live" lessons. All of these requirements meant changes in the usual way of doing things.

Most innovations fail; that is, they have no lasting effect. When innovations are introduced into a system, one of three things is likely to happen:

• Because of the difficulties involved in change, the educational innovation is adopted but is rejected before a true test is made.
• The innovation is adopted in a halfhearted way so that the characteristics that provided the benefit are "watered down" or eliminated altogether.
• The innovation is adopted but after a short time is, itself, changed so that the system is accommodated.

When one thinks of the possibilities listed above, it is easy to see why innovations vary so widely from place to place.

The trademark for Reading Recovery is not a guarantee of high quality but it does contribute to consistency of implementation across sites that are far-spread geographically and exist in many different kinds of communities. The essential characteristics of Reading Recovery implementation are clearly described in a set of standards and guidelines.

On an annual basis, programs are granted a royalty free license to use the name. Every district that has a Reading Recovery program is reviewed annually to determine if the district has met standards for program quality. A list of registered sites is reported annually to the U.S. Department of Education.

Reading Recovery sites are part of a network that depends on regular contact with a university training center as well as examination of the data sent annually from each site. When an emergency situation exists (such as temporary loss of personnel), educators at a site may work with the Standards and Guidelines Committee of the Reading Recovery Council of North America for a temporary waiver on a given requirement. There is an attempt to work with sites toward improving the implementation plan; however, ultimately, Reading Recovery must be provided as specified. Some site officials at this point make the decision not to comply and no longer claim to have a Reading Recovery program in the district; a small number [fewer than a dozen] have had the right to licensure removed for noncompliance.

These actions are taken so that the benefits of Reading Recovery's high quality can be provided to children and to protect districts' investment in Reading Recovery training and implementation. The reason for using the trademark and monitoring program quality is to ensure the integrity of the program.

Reading Recovery is a non-profit program. There are strict controls that prevent individuals and commercial organizations from using the name Reading Recovery to promote a program that does not comply with Standards and Guidelines of the Reading Recovery Council of North America.⁴¹