Interactions between school systems and reading Recovery programmes – evidence from Northern Ireland

Abstract

Recent work on raising attainment in education has raised theoretical issues about organizational responses to innovation and qualitative aspects of programme implementation. In particular, the ‘depth’ of an implementation (the extent to which a programme actually changes the educational interactions between pupils and their teachers) is now thought to be as important as its ‘spread’ (the number of schools in which it is replicated). Such issues, together with the existing literature on Reading Recovery implementation, suggest that it is time to review the models of implementation held within the Reading Recovery community. We used a range of methods at four levels of data collection to analyse variation in ‘depth’ of implementation in a countrywide Reading Recovery programme. From our findings we conclude that Reading Recovery has achieved resounding success as an individual programme, but that it would be still more efficient if the models of implementation were to be reviewed.

Keywords:

• reading recovery
• implementation
• school effect
• change model

Acknowledgements

We would like to acknowledge the Department for Education, Northern Ireland, who supported this research, Deloitte & Touche who were research partners, the UK Reading Recovery Network, and the schools, administrators, Reading Recovery teachers and Reading Recovery Tutors in Northern Ireland, without whom the research would not have been possible.

Notes

1. This examination was once widespread throughout the British Isles, and was used to select children for entry to more academic secondary schools, from whence they had a better chance of entering tertiary education.

2. For the purposes of educational administration, Northern Ireland is divided administratively into five regions, each having an administrative infrastructure and a responsibility for developing local policy and monitoring school performance.

3. In one school it was unclear whether the programme was to continue or not.