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READING
RECOVERY |
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Reading Recovery is an
early intervention program for young readers who are experiencing
difficulty in their first year of reading instruction. Such
children go through a cycle of confusion, frustration, an anxiety.
This pattern of thinking quickly leads to feelings of failure for these
"at-risk" children. They often fall behind their
classmates and require expensive long-term remedial help. |
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| By intervening early
on. Reading Recovery can halt the debilitating cycle of failure
for at-risk children and can enable them to become independent readers
and writers who can fully participate with other first grade students in
their classroom instruction, reading at average of above average levels. |
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The Reading Recovery
program is designed to serve the lowest achieving readers in a
first-grade class. In the Reading Recovery program, children
receive individual daily lessons from a specially trained teacher. |
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Program History |
| Reading Recovery was
developed by New Zealand educator and researcher Dr. Marie M. Clay, who
conducted observational research in the mid-1960s that enabled her to
design ways fro detecting early reading difficulties of children.
In the mid-1970s, she developed Reading Recovery procedures with
teachers and tested the program in New Zealand. The success of
this pilot program led to the nationwide adoption of Reading Recovery in
New Zealand in the early 1980s. |
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| The New Zealand program
was monitored closely by a group of researchers at the Ohio State
University who were looking for alternatives to traditional remedial
reading programs. In 1985-1986, following a successful pilot year,
funding was made available to implement Reading Recovery in Ohio as a
collaborative effort by The Ohio Department of Education, Columbus
Public Schools, and The Ohio State University. In 1987, the U.S.
Department of Education's National Diffusion Network (NDN) selected
Reading Recovery as a developer/ demonstrator project and provided
funding to help disseminate the program to school districts in other
states. four educators from outside Ohio received training a The
Ohio State University during the 1987-1988 academic year. The
returned to their home states the following year to begin serving
children and training teachers. |
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| Today Reading Recovery
exists as a national program in New Zealand and is widely implemented in
48 of the United States, eight Canadian provinces and the Yukon
Territory, Australia, the United Kingdom and the U.S. Department of
Defense Dependent School System. An estimated 120,000 North
American children will be served in the 1997-1998 academic school year
by Reading Recovery educators. |
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| What is Reading Recovery? |
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| Reading Recovery is an
early intervention program that helps the lowest achieving first grade
children to develop effective strategies for reading and writing and to
reach average levels of classroom performance. The following key
program elements of Reading Recovery operate within educational systems: |
| 1. Intensive daily
one-to-one instruction for first-grade children most at risk of reading
failure; |
| 2. A year-long
training course and continuing professional development through which
educators learn and continue to explore proven, research-based
theory and procedures; |
| 3. A
research/evaluation program to monitor program results and provide
support for participating educators and institutions; |
| 4. A long-range plan
to chart the course toward full implementation and literacy for
children. |
| These program elements are
supported by the Reading Recovery Council of North America, a network of
educators that monitors program integrity, provides professional
development, coordinates the collection of research, evaluates data, and
disseminates information. |
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| The Components of a
Reading Recovery Lesson |
| A Reading Recovery
Lesson last for thirty minutes and is divided into 3 main areas:
Familiar Reading (including the Running Record), Writing, and the New
Book. Each section should lasts approximately 10 minutes.
Before the lesson begins the teacher will usually do a quick review of
two or three high frequency words that the child is able to write.
The emphasis is on fluent, rapid writing, if the child is not able to
write the word, the teacher models it for him. |
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| Familiar Reading
The child reads books that have been
read before. Some may be selected by the child as personal
favorites and others by the teacher. The teacher acts as a support
to the child prompting and praising as needed. There should be a
high level of engagement and success on the child's part. |
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| Running Record
The child reads yesterday's new book
independently as the teacher records a Running Record as a neutral
observer. Teaching occurs after the book is read and the only time
the teacher may intervene during the Running Record is to encourage a
child by saying "You try it" or tell the word, so that the
child can continue. |
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| Letter or Word Work with
Magnetic Letters
A few minutes may be spent on letter
formation or working with magnetic letters on letter identification
tasks. Activities which explore ways to make words and take them
apart also take place during this time. Through this exploration
the child is able to see how words work, and how to use a known word to
get to an unknown word. |
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| Writing a Story
After a conversation between the
teacher and the child, the child generates a sentence or two to
write. The child and the teacher share the writing with the child
doing as much as possible independently and the teacher contributing the
rest. The message is produced on the bottom page with the top page
being used for practice. sound boxes, linking of similar words,
and taking words to fluency take place on the practice page. |
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| Cut-up Story
The child's story is reread and the
teacher writes it on a sentence strip. As the child reads the
story again, the teacher cuts it apart for the child to
reassemble. The reassembled sentence clearly printed on the front
(the child can then reassemble it at home later in the day). |
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| New Book
The New Book is introduced to the
child by the teacher. Each introduction is tailored for the needs
of the child and the specific concepts structure and overall meaning of
the book. The intent is to give the child a meaning framework with
any unusual language structures highlighted or new concepts
taught. The child should be engaged in the book and encouraged to
talk about the pictures and the story. During the child's first
reading, the teacher supports independent problem-solving by prompting
for cues and strategies. The child should be encouraged to make
predictions about unknown words based on the meaning of the story, on
how the word looks, and on the structure of the sentence that that word
is in. The teacher is supportive and helps to get the
meaning-driven momentum going, but encourages independence in
problem-solving. |
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