Marie Clay system??

Reading Recovery was not designed to be used with children with any kind of Learning Disability. It was designed for use with the lowest students in regular classrooms. It is about 80% successful with the population with which it is used. In my own classroom I found that by using multi-sensory techniques with the entire class, students who were identified for RR and placed on the wait list no longer needed it when time for their RR instruction was available. RR is a product of the whole language movement but in recent years has been modified so that much more attention is focused on phonics activities than originally planned. Marie Clay’s direct statement in my presence was that “We threw out phonics in New Zealand years ago.” The best objective report on RR that I know of was by Timothy Shanahan and Rebecca Barr and appeared in the Reading Research Quarterly, Vol. 30(4), 1995. Grace at .

Grace, Thank you for your candid response. I clicked on your website but was unable to get the text to come up. Is the Spel-Lang Tree a system you have developed? Is it intended for young children? Thank you again. Kathy

Gee, I clicked on the link and everything came up fine. I wonder if there was a temporary problem. The answer to both of your questions is “Yes.”

You might try . There you will find a less complete version of the site and since it was set up, has been lost in a school site. If you can get to the Johnsburg School Site, click the “Information” button in the top row, then the “Spel-Lang Tree” button. It says there that it’s a reading program but it’s really a spelling/language program. I guess that’s what happens when one allows others to assist with technology. Thanks for asking. Grace

Oops, I told you to click the wrong button. It’s the “District 12 Info” button.

about Reading Recovery: http://darkwing.uoregon.edu/~bgrossen/rr.htm

Mary

that I would not use it with a child diagnosed with dyslexia. I would be looking at Phono-Graphix (http://www.readamerica.net), Lindamood Bell LiPS (http://www.lindamoodbell.com) or perhaps Orton-Gillingham.

Mary

I am not a fan of this particular method but if you want to know more about it, Marie Clay wrote a book entitled “Reading Recovery” that explains her program in depth, which is available in many libraries and can be obtained at amazon.com. Before you decide to adopt her methods, you also might want to go to a college library and get out some articles on reading recovery that can be found in “Reading Research Quarterly” I think circa 1995. There is also an eval from Massey University on the net- sorry I don’t have the web site.

Dear Kathy
I’ve done a lot of research into Reading Recovery and have never found a positive independent, longitudinal study of RR. RR did abysmally in the New Zealand study ( where RR originated). In Detroit, the control students did better than the RR students. In Wake County, NC, the control students did the same as the RR students. In Chapel Hill, NC, in the first year of implementation,the non-discontinued RR students (meaning the RR teachers felt they were not progressing well in RR and were dropped from RR) actually did better than the RR students longitudinally. The San Diego results were terrible and it goes on and on. If you want to know more, let me know. The reason the students don’t prosper with all the one-on-one tutoring they get in RR is that the main strategy the teachers teach for word identification is context clues. They ask the child, “What would make sense?” or “Look at the picture”. Phonics is a last resort and it is not taught systematically or explicitly.

One of the earlier responses to your question stated that 80% of the children are successful. Unfortunately that person has swallowed the RR pronouncements apparently not knowing where their data comes from. They do not include in their success rates the children who entered RR and got up to 59 lessons but were dropped from RR because the teacher felt they weren’t making progress. The tests used are subjective and they use predictable text as their text level. In several independent studies I’m aware of (the New Zealand study being one), the classroom teachers found the RR students reading at much lower text levels than the RR teachers claimed they were reading at.

It’s a good thing to see some real data (whether positive or negative) rather than self-fulfilling prophecies.
Readers take warning — this pattern, of a “reading” program claiming incredible results on some kind of testing, followed by zero or worse on genuine independent testing, is almost the standard in the education community. It pays to be skeptical of claims.

I suspect (based on having read a fair amount about it) that the real results are between the good and bad claims. There’s a fairly critical but reasonably objective analysis that some folks in Oregon did on it.

It was discussed at an IDA conference a couple of years back. Seems that when it began, it was one of the first intensive, 1:1 remedial programs, period. It was hailed by lots of people (including lots of IDA folks) as a Good Thing, a wonderful portent of good things to come. Louisa MOats basically said that she doesn’t take back what she said about it then — but that basically, the program didn’t keep up with the research on reading; basically didn’t apply ye olde scientific method so that it could evolve and become more useful to more students over time.

Many teachers *feel* like they are very successful with their students. I suspect that when the students really do have a lack of “literacy background” as their main issue, that it does a world of good. HOwever, the same teachers get defensive and circle their wagons ‘round each other pretty quickly - a psychological defense used when logical defense won’t work.

I think there’s a real learning style issue here (or Myers-Brigg type personality issue). Analytical types go nuts at these programs that can’t demonstrate real results. The more nurturing types (who are drawn, with good reason, to elementary ed) respond to programs that focus more on making teacher and student feel good, emotionally. And those folks tend to respond more emotionally and feel more threatened by what they consider “attacks.”

I read a study some years ago — sorry, it was a while and I can’t point to the source — on best practices in pre-school education. This study was (unlike many) actually designed scientifically. Children were randomly assigned to one of three groups: a traditional play-oriented Head Start program, a bells-and-whistles “modern” program with computer-based teaching and experimental theories on cognition, and an academically-oriented program with emphasis on pre-reading and reading skills and some formal teaching.

The results in general were mixed; some better reading scores for the academically-oriented group, but nothing terribly outstanding. (I believe they were using the usual not terribly effective teaching methods, just transferred down a year or two).

However, there was one very important result: the parents were surveyed about the success of the program, their children’s learning, and their satisfaction with the program. In *each* group, the parents were firmly convinced that their children were in the very best system and were progressing the best.

In other words, the teachers were doing a moderate, average job as far as teaching the kids, but an extremely good job of salesmanship.

Pre-school teachers are actually told what to say to parents and how to sell their programs — I have read texts that actully provide answers to those difficult questions parents ask about learning. Those of us who prefer the bare truth rather than nurturing failure make ourselves very unpopular with the system. I just talkedn last night to another parent of a student passed through elementary school barely able to read but with positive teacher evaluations …

I enjoyed your response. Unfortunately, I wish I could find something positive in the research results of Reading Recovery, but I honestly can’t. In the New Zealand study they found that the RR student’s self-esteem even went down. The researcher said he had never seen that occur in his decades of reading research. He said that student’s in remediation programs usually feel they’ve been helped, even if they haven’t. Just yesterday a major letter was published by an internatioanl group of 31 reading researchers stating, “RR is not successful with its targeted student population, the lowest performing students” and much, much more. You can see it at: www.educationnews.org/ReadingRecoveryisnotsuccessful.htm

I am afraid that the situation is worse than you think.. In the senate hearings on Bush’s ” no child left behind” reading initiative, they are discussing reading programs that are based on research and could be federally funded. Senator Clinton and Senator Collins are hard at work lobbying for RR to be part of the group of programs that will qualify You see, on average, RR costs $8,000 per child with very little results. A group of about 35 experts in the field have signed a letter stating to the congressmen that RR shouldn’t receive any of the money because it doesn’t qualify. In the letter, it states different parts of the individual studies, one from even New Zealand, the home of RR, that states that RR isn’t effective for the target population, the bottom 20% unless there is a phonics piece added. That will not happen because RR contradicts phonics. Whole language never taught anyone to read and RR won’t either. I have had to teach gifted and talented kids how to decode in order to increase their reading level past their grade. If you want a copy of the letter, email me personally and I will send you the attachment.