The effects of Reading Recovery on children’s literacy progress and special educational needs status: a three-year follow-up study

Abstract

Reading Recovery (RR) is an intensive one-to-one reading intervention programme designed for five- to six-year-old children who are the lowest literacy achievers after one year of formal tuition. RR has been shown to have impressive effects in the short-term, particularly on those measures tailored to, and designed for, the programme. However, less is known about the programme’s long-term effectiveness. The present study followed up at the end of Year 4: 120 comparison children, 73 children who had received RR three years earlier, and 48 children in RR schools who had not received RR. We found that the children who had received RR achieved an average National Curriculum (NC) level of 3b in reading which indicates being on track for Level 4 at the end of Key Stage 2. The comparison children were on average at Level 2a in reading, significantly lower than the RR. RR children were also significantly less likely than comparison children to be identified as having a special educational need at the end of Year 3. These findings indicate that effects of the RR programme are still apparent three years post-intervention.

Keywords:

• early intervention
• early literacy
• reading difficulty
• curriculum
• special needs

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank the Every Child a Chance Trust for their contribution to this research. We gratefully acknowledge the support of the teachers, parents and children who took part in this study, without which the study would not have been possible. We would also like to pay a special thank you to Helen Mirelman and Lesley Zuke for their invaluable contributions.