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Responses to Some Common Misconceptions
In today's debates over literacy and schooling, claims and counter
claims are aired, often without regard for accuracy. "Expert"
opinion offers a bewildering maze for educators to negotiate. Here,
we clarify several issues that have caused confusions about Reading
Recovery.
CLARIFICATION #1
Reading Recovery is not aligned with any classroom approach.
Designed to offer extra help, Reading Recovery procedures are based
on research about how children learn to read and write. The
procedures represent highly effective approaches that Reading
Recovery teachers use in response to the individual child's needs.
Reading Recovery provides additional one-to-one support for children
who need more intensive teaching for strategic processing behaviors
than any classroom approach can provide. The strategies learned by
Reading Recovery children are helpful during reading regardless of
the instructional method used in the classroom. Therefore, Reading
Recovery is effective in any school regardless of the approach used
in the classroom, provided that approach is well taught.
CLARIFICATION # 2
Reading Recovery teachers DO teach children about letters, sounds,
and words.42
Reading Recovery teachers give specific and explicit attention to
letters, sounds, and words, both while reading and writing extended
text and as direct instruction.
In a comprehensive review of research on beginning reading
instruction, Marilyn Adams, referring to Reading Recovery,
acknowledged that the "importance of phonological and linguistic
awareness is explicitly recognized."43
She also stated that Reading Recovery, along with several other
programs, is "designed to develop thorough appreciation of phonics."44
Consistent with Adams' analysis, subsequent research by Stahl,
Stahl, & McKenna45 reported
that all students in the Reading Recovery group made gains in letter
identification, phonemic awareness, and dictation tests, variables
which were not stressed in Reading Recovery lessons, and all made
significantly greater improvement in phonological processing tasks
than unserved 'at-risk' students. (See also Iversen & Tunmer in
Table 4.)
The program encourages meaning-making and problem-solving with
print. Decoding is purposeful. Children need to use connections
between letters and sounds and their knowledge of how words work in
order to problem solve words while maintaining meaning. Recognizing
this critical aspect of reading, Reading Recovery professionals
understand:
- Phonemic awareness and its importance in beginning reading and
writing.
- The alphabetic principle and orthographic knowledge and their
importance in beginning reading and writing.
- The child's need to:
- hear phonemes in words
- associate letters with sounds
- recognize and use spelling patterns
- apply this knowledge in reading
- apply this knowledge in writing
- expand this knowledge to all the purposes for which it can be
used in all levels of literacy processing.
CLARIFICATION # 3
Reading Recovery is not a classroom program and is not a program for
groups.
Misconceptions are revealed through comments such as "Reading
Recovery in the classroom" or "Reading Recovery in groups."
Neither is possible.
Reading Recovery is not an approach that can be generalized to
classrooms or small group teaching. Rather, it is a program in which
the teacher works from the individual child's knowledge and
responses in a one-to-one setting. When children are taught in a
group, the teacher has to choose a compromise path, a next move for
"the group." To get results with the lowest achievers the teacher
must work with the particular (and very limited) response repertoire
of a particular child using what he knows as the context within
which to introduce him to novel things.46
To prevent literacy problems, individual teaching for some children
is needed.47
Classroom teaching calls for a comprehensive approach, including a
wide range of literacy-related activities with whole groups, small
groups, and individuals in a variety of subject areas. Reading
Recovery is a specific approach to prevent literacy problems and is
targeted to a limited number of learners within a classroom program.48
Reading Recovery provides supplementary instruction which is not
intended to supplant the literacy program of the classroom.
CLARIFICATION # 4
The design of Reading Recovery calls for service to the lowest
achieving children.
There are at least two rationales for taking only the lowest
achieving children in Reading Recovery. First, at entry to the
program, the rate and level of progress cannot be reliably predicted
for any child. Therefore, the most extreme cases are selected and
the program serves as a period of diagnostic teaching. Second, if
the lowest achievers are not selected, the school will never clear
the children with literacy difficulties from its rolls, and these
children will return to haunt the program in subsequent years.49
Any system or school not serving the lowest children is out of
compliance with the standards and principles underlying Reading
Recovery implementation.
Children in first grade who are receiving regular classroom
instruction and who are not receiving another literacy intervention
are eligible for Reading Recovery services. These children include
those involved in a range of special services including ESL and
special education.50 For
example, national data indicate that about 10% of those served are
identified as ESL.
CLARIFICATION # 5
Children are not arbitrarily "dropped" from Reading Recovery
service.
Critics have argued that children are dropped from the Reading
Recovery program in early lessons because of predicted failure. The
design of the program calls for a full program with an opportunity
for up to 20 weeks for all children. When an exception is made, it
is usually because of a report a specialist has made with
alternative recommendations. These decisions are made at the school
level and involve the school team and the site's teacher leader. Any
school or school system arbitrarily removing children from Reading
Recovery service is out of compliance with national standards and
principles underlying program implementation.
CLARIFICATION # 6
Reading Recovery continues to expand.
Information from the National Data Evaluation Center (NDEC) shows
continued expansion of Reading Recovery in the United States. As
indicated in Table 1, Reading Recovery's growth in most categories
approximated 10% from one school year to another.
Table 1
Program Growth in the United States from the 1995-1996
Academic Year to the 1996-1997 Academic Year |
| Categories Teacher Leaders
Teachers
Districts
Schools |
1995-1996 625
14,153
2,939
9,062 |
1996-1997 667
15,843
3,241
9,815 |
% Increase 7%
12%
10%
8% |
Data as of 11/15/97In the fall of 1997, the number of
teacher leaders-in-training was 17% higher than in the
previous year. Teacher leaders are the key personnel in
preparing Reading Recovery teachers. Therefore, the addition
of these 133 teacher leaders-in-training will further extend
the opportunities for expansion in subsequent years. |
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