2014 Reading Recovery study- can we believe the results?

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Debbie_Hepplewhite
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Re: 2014 Reading Recovery study- can we believe the results?

Post by Debbie_Hepplewhite »

I've just been asked, very sensibly I must add, whether Reading Recovery is the 'same' Reading Recovery as Martin Kozloff reviews in his detailed piece.

The point here is, we do not know, because trying to discover/verify any 'changes' that RR personnel claim have been made is like trying to get blood out of a stone (quite frankly).

My understanding is that Reading Recovery is heavily scripted and copyrighted and therefore it is hard to know whether there are differences between Reading Recovery in different countries and based in different headquarters.

Marie Clay is notorious for saying she will change the description of Reading Recovery to fit in with official guidance (whilst not changing its substance) and so unless we are able to examine Reading Recovery transparently, how are we to know?

And if there are a few changes, what are they - and are they now in line with the prevailing findings of a substantial body of international research which warns about the potential detraction and damage from multi-cueing reading strategies?

Quite frankly, I doubt it - but I am more than happy to be proved wrong - especially as across the world, schools continue to send their weakest readers to the resident Reading Recovery teacher - and because whilst there IS a resident Reading Recovery teacher, there is less likely to be high-quality evidence-based Systematic Synthetic Phonics practice in the school because clearly the school personnel either don't understand the difference in approach - or they 'believe' in multi-cueing reading strategies.

Well, here is an irony - if there was high-quality Systematic Synthetic Phonics practice in any school, there would be no need for a Reading Recovery type invention at all.

That is not to say there would be no need for small group work, perhaps some one to one in rare circumstances, perhaps some more intensive, more little and often phonics work and/or language work - but in no way should there be a multi-cueing reading intervention as is the basis of Reading Recovery since its inception.

Please come forward if anyone is able to fully show how Reading Recovery has changed since Martin Kozloff's 2004 review and in the UK since the Science and Technology select committee inquiry in 2009 which concluded that the UK Government was wrong to roll-out and fund Reading Recovery under the 'Every Child a Reader' umbrella and that Reading Recovery should come in line with Jim Rose's recommendations which were accepted by the Government at the time and the subsequent Governments.

We welcome enlightenment and being pointed in the direction of publicly available descriptions of Reading Recovery and its training programme.
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Debbie_Hepplewhite
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Re: 2014 Reading Recovery study- can we believe the results?

Post by Debbie_Hepplewhite »

I've added this 2013 LDA article about the scenario in New Zealand and Reading Recovery's role in the prevailing weak literacy standards - ironically, the original 'home' of Marie Clay's Reading Recovery - well-intentioned there is no doubt - but a whole language intervention to address the damage of whole language literacy provision in the first place! :(

http://www.iferi.org/iferi_forum/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=54
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Debbie_Hepplewhite
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Re: 2014 Reading Recovery study- can we believe the results?

Post by Debbie_Hepplewhite »

This posting via the 'Thinking Reading' blog raises questions about Reading Recovery:

Are all reading interventions created equal?

https://thinkingreadingwritings.wordpre ... ted-equal/

And importantly, the posting above leads to this posting via the 'Horatio Speaks' blog:

A convergence of interests?

https://horatiospeaks.wordpress.com/201 ... interests/
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Debbie_Hepplewhite
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Re: 2014 Reading Recovery study- can we believe the results?

Post by Debbie_Hepplewhite »

Professor James Chapman's and Professor William Tunmer's book 'Excellence and Equity in Literacy Education: The Case of New Zealand' is now available. Read about it here:

http://www.iferi.org/iferi_forum/viewto ... p=485#p485
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Debbie_Hepplewhite
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Re: 2014 Reading Recovery study- can we believe the results?

Post by Debbie_Hepplewhite »

We now have a blog posting about a presentation by James Chapman in Canada:

http://www.iferi.org/blog/
IFERI is delighted to be able to share with you a brand new paper by Professors James W. Chapman and William E. Tunmer, from the Institute of Education at Massey University, New Zealand.

This paper was presented, by invitation, at the 39th Annual Conference of the International Academy for Research in Learning Disabilities (IARLD), Vancouver, Canada, July 8, 2015. Professor James Chapman has been a Fellow of IARLD since 1983.

IARLD (International Academy for Research in Learning Disabilities) is an international professional organization dedicated to conducting and sharing research about individuals who have learning disabilities. Fellows of IARLD include premier scientists, educators and clinicians in the field of learning disabilities throughout the world.

For convenience, some extracts and conclusions from the paper are published as part of this blog post. To open or download the complete paper, simply click the title below.
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Debbie_Hepplewhite
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Re: 2014 Reading Recovery study- can we believe the results?

Post by Debbie_Hepplewhite »

Louisa Moats was asked her opinion of Reading Recovery during a recent visit to Australia:

Reading Recovery ‘harmful’, visiting academic Louisa Moats says

March 26, 2015
Henrietta Cook, education reporter

http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/readi ... m8m9e.html

A leading United States literacy expert has launched a scathing attack on Reading Recovery, telling a Department of Education event that aspects of the remedial reading program are "harmful".

Dr Louisa Moats told Education Department staff on Tuesday that it was "indefensible" to spend money on the program, which is designed to help struggling Year 1 readers.

Her comments coincide with new figures that show only 10 per cent of Victorian government primary schools offered the early-intervention program in 2014, down from 25 per cent the previous year.

"The whole approach is based on ideas that have not held up to scientific scrutiny. So it is indefensible to keep on spending money on this," Dr Moats said in a video that was uploaded to YouTube.

Speaking at the Department's Treasury Place building, Dr Moats said if she had a child with a learning disability she would refuse to let them take part in a Reading Recovery lesson.

"The instruction is directing their attention away from what they should be paying attention to. It's just not ok, it's harmful."

The early-intervention program gives poor readers in Year 1 daily, one-to-one, 30-minute sessions with a trained teacher. It was developed in New Zealand but now runs in Australia, Britain , United States and Canada.

The department's website said "Reading Recovery has a strong tradition of success with the lowest-achieving children". In 2014, 119 government primary schools in Victoria ran the Reading Recovery program.

Learning Difficulties Australia council member Alison Clarke, who is also a speech pathologist, said Reading Recovery was not achieving its goals.
"It is not teaching kids to de-code it's teaching them to guess," she said.

She said Reading Recovery did not give children a phonological awareness – an awareness of sounds in words – or spelling patterns.

"Some of the activities in Reading Recovery set children back. The whole look at the picture and guess. I teach children to sound out and then they come back from Reading Recovery and they are looking at the picture and making things up."

Dr Moats was brought to Australia by the group and visited the department to speak to staff, stakeholders and academics about learning disabilities. She raised concerns about Reading Recovery following a question from the audience.

In 2012 the former state government stopped funding Reading Recovery tutors, with schools having to absorb the cost out of their own literacy budgets.
The program has courted controversy in Australia, where academics are divided on the program's merits.

Monash University associate professor Janet Scull said the program was a success and boosted children's literacy skills.
"One of the criticism is it doesn't address phonological awareness and that is not found. It addresses the teaching of phonics through both reading and writing. It helps children notice of a range of information sources in text."

Dr Scull, who has done extensive research on Reading Recovery and also trained tutors for the program, said reading difficulties were a complex issue and there was no single solution.

She said the program worked with the bottom 20 per cent of children in a school.

Her views were echoed by Melbourne University Professor of language and literacy education Joe Lo Bianco. "Reading Recovery is a great asset. It helps all teachers to focus on the explicit things they can do in literacy."
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Debbie_Hepplewhite
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Re: 2014 Reading Recovery study- can we believe the results?

Post by Debbie_Hepplewhite »

Professor James Chapman and Jennifer Chew raise their concerns about a research paper featuring 'Literacy Lift-Off' for whole class teaching - which is 'an adaption of the well-known Reading Recovery programme':

http://www.iferi.org/iferi_forum/viewto ... ?f=2&t=452
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Debbie_Hepplewhite
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Re: 2014 Reading Recovery study- can we believe the results?

Post by Debbie_Hepplewhite »

See this in the 'Financial Review' - a piece on Reading Recovery by Tim Dodd:

$50m Reading Recovery program is ineffective, NSW Education Department study finds


http://www.afr.com/news/policy/educatio ... 905-gjfrvh
A $50 million-a-year scheme to help NSW students learn to read and write through recognising words by sight doesn't work, according to a new study by the state Education Department.

A departmental evaluation of Reading Recovery – a 40-year-old programthat originated in New Zealand and is widely used in Australia, the United States, the United Kingdom and Canada – found it is only effective for a small proportion of students.

The report's findings will give more ammunition to critics of Reading Recovery, who say the program does not properly use phonics and explicit instruction to teach struggling students how to read – techniques that research has shown are the best ways to deal with reading difficulties in the early years of primary school.
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Debbie_Hepplewhite
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Re: 2014 Reading Recovery study- can we believe the results?

Post by Debbie_Hepplewhite »

Professors James Chapman and William Tunmer have had an article on Reading Recovery published online in the Australian Journal of Learning Difficulties.

It's now available here:

http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10. ... 16.1202847.
Discussion

Schwartz’s response to Chapman and Tunmer’s analysis of reading recovery data: whose ideology and whose politics?

Abstract

In critiquing our paper on “The literacy performance of ex-Reading Recovery students between two and four years following participation in the program: Is this intervention effective for students with early reading difficulties?”, Schwartz argues that we have engaged in pursuing political and ideological agendas as part of our ongoing attacks on the Reading Recovery program. We reject his claims and argue that if we are ideological, it is related to our commitment to the use of rigorous scientific research to examine claims made in favor of the Reading Recovery program. We also argue that Reading Recovery was adopted in New Zealand largely for political reasons rather than on the basis of carefully controlled research. We stand by our interpretation of various studies in New Zealand that call into question the effectiveness of Reading Recovery in terms of the stated goals for the program.

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Debbie_Hepplewhite
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Re: 2014 Reading Recovery study- can we believe the results?

Post by Debbie_Hepplewhite »

There have been developments in Australia regarding the official funding of Reading Recovery!

You can read about the change of funding arrangements for Reading Recovery in New South Wales here:

http://www.iferi.org/iferi_forum/viewto ... ?f=3&t=649

IFERI committee member, Professor Kevin Wheldall, and others, have been campaigning to raise awareness about the lack of efficacy of Reading Recovery - with its flawed multi-cueing guessing strategies - for over 20 years!
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