Parents’ experiences of their children’s supplementary reading intervention: A qualitative exploration

Abstract

We examined the lived experiences of twelve parents of low-progress readers. Parents were recruited from five state schools in Melbourne and each participated in individual interviews. Analyses revealed that most children received Reading Recovery which was the first and often only option. Parents were divided regarding satisfaction with their children’s reading outcomes following this program. Sources of dissatisfaction included: a waiting list for commencement of intervention, the sudden cessation of Reading Recovery based on the 100-session limit, and Reading Recovery’s theoretical orientation towards constructivist principles. Half the parents independently sought external reading intervention from conventional and non-conventional service providers. Moreover, many parents encountered a personal toll related to their children’s reading difficulty. This study highlights the needs of parents who are important stakeholders in the management of low-progress readers. Our findings call for a more systematic, integrated and mindful approach between educators, policy makers and parents of low-progress readers.

Acknowledgements

The authors are grateful to the twelve participants who gave their time to this study and spoke with openness and honesty during the interview and/or observations. The principals and teaching staff at the participating schools also kindly agreed to approach parents to volunteer for the study.

Notes

1. The National Assessment Program – Literacy and Numeracy (NAPLAN) assesses all Australian school children in their fourth, sixth, eights and tenth year of school. Students are tested on reading, writing, language conventions and numeracy (NAPLAN – General, 2013).

2. Reading Recovery, developed by Marie Clay (see Clay, 1987), is an early intervention program, grounded in constructivist philosophy, targeting at-risk readers in their second year of school (Pinnell, 1989). It is used in many countries including Australia, America, Canada, New Zealand and England (Reynolds & Wheldall, 2007). Reading Recovery was introduced into Australian primary schools in 1984 (Reynolds & Wheldall, 2007) and continues to be used widely (e.g. Reading Recovery, 2013; Reading Recovery Guidelines for 2010 and Beyond, 2010; Reading Recovery in the Archdiocese of Melbourne, 2011). The program, which is administered by certified Reading Recovery teachers, consists of up to 20 weeks of daily, individual tuition, comprising a maximum of 100 lessons (Chapman, Tunmer, & Prochnow, 2001; D’ Agostino & Murphy, 2004). In accordance with its constructivist roots, Reading Recovery aims to equip children with a broad range of visual, contextual, pictorial and letter-based strategies to facilitate reading (Briggs & Young, 2003; Pinnell, Lyons, DeFord, Bryk, & Seltzer, 1994). Explicit and graded direct instruction that focuses on assembling the component parts of sub-lexical units into words is considered a distraction from attention to the meaning of text (Moorman, Blanton, & McLaughlin, 1994).