This evaluation examined the impact of Reading Recovery (RR) on students' outcomes in NSW government schools. The evaluation found some evidence that RR has a modest short-term effect on reading skills among the lowest performing students. However, RR does not appear to be an effective intervention for students that begin Year 1 with more proficient literacy skills. In the longer-term, there was no evidence of any positive effects of RR on students' reading performance in Year 3.

Background

The New South Wales (NSW) Government has a strong focus on improving students' literacy and numeracy skills in the early years of schooling. In 2011 the NSW Government committed $261 million under the Literacy and Numeracy Action Plan to improve literacy and numeracy for students in the early years (Kindergarten to Year 2). This focus on early literacy is important as students who are not reading well by the time they reach Year 3 face significant challenges for the remainder of their schooling (Willms 2003). Early identification of students who are having difficulty reading and the introduction of effective remediation strategies are both critical elements of a school’s role in developing the reading capabilities of their students.

Reading Recovery Overview

There are many different interventions used in NSW primary schools to assist young students improve their literacy outcomes1. One of the most widely used interventions is Reading Recovery (RR), which has been
at the forefront of the remediation effort in the NSW Department of Education for over two decades.
In 2012, RR was offered in over half (approximately 60%) of NSW government primary schools, with approximately 14% of all Year 1 students participating in the intervention.

RR was developed in New Zealand in the 1970s by Dame Marie Clay as an intensive individualised literacy intervention that aims to accelerate literacy learning for students performing in the bottom 20 per cent of Year 1 (Department of Education and Communities 2015; What Works Clearinghouse 2008). RR tuition is provided on a one-to-one basis over 12-20 weeks with the intention of raising students’ performance to the average level of their Year 1 peers, thereby enabling them to benefit from classroom instruction and sustain achievement throughout the early years of school (Department of Education and Communities 2015; May et al. 2013; 2015).

While the intention of RR is to be responsive to each individual student’s needs, the intervention typically addresses several aspects of reading and writing processes that support the comprehension of texts. These include: vocabulary, fluency, comprehension, writing, phonemic awareness, phonics, motivation and oral language (What Works Clearinghouse 2013)2. RR does not claim to align itself explicitly with a particular classroom-based approach and is substantively based on the notion that students draw on multiple sources of information (e.g., visual, linguistic, text-based) when learning to read (Chapman & Tunmer 2011; Reading Recovery Council of North America 2015, see http://readingrecovery.org/).