The Basics Contributors: Marie M. Clay, Gay Sue Pinnell & Irene Fountas and Linda Dorn

 Marie Clay is from Australia/New Zealand and after years of study and working with young struggling readers she created an intervention called Reading Recovery  The main emphasis in Reading Recovery is to work with the lowest 20% of first grade students (in America-Australia and New Zealand are different)  The goal is to have the students’ become on grade level by the end of their specified intervention ‘round’ which is weeks long, depending on the student

 My experience was that the lowest students were identified by the first grade classroom students from the intake assessments done over during the summer of prospective first graders.  Of these, the lowest (reading at Level A or below-especially nonreaders) were selected for Reading Recovery’s version of assessment called the Observation Survey.

 The observation survey is a series of five tasks that assess the proposed Reading Recovery candidate  The tasks are: Concepts About Print, Hearing and Recording Sounds in Words, Sight Words, a Writing Assessment and a running record.  Those children who receive that lowest scores according to RRNA’s comparison data are selected for Reading Recovery intervention

 Once the student is selected for service, they start their first round of intervention. The goal is to have the student on grade level within 12 weeks.  If this is not done within the first twelve weeks, there is the option to keep the student for a second round. This student will have the maximum amount of intervention, 24 weeks.

ROAMING AROUND THE KNOWN  The first two weeks of intervention are spent with the student and teacher getting to know one another. They will work on the student’s alphabet book, they will write in their daily journal and make sentence strips with it. Then, this cut up strip will be sent home as homework where the child and parent put the strip together and then read a selected book that is also in the homework bag ACTUAL READING RECOVERY LESSONS-THIRTY MINUTES  Student will read 2 books of their own selection  Running Record is taken of the New Book from the previous lesson  Daily journal: student creates one sentence, then writes it in their journal  Write the journal sentence on a strip of paper and cut out and mix up. Then, the student will reconstruct the sentence.  Introduction to new book  Read new book

12 WEEKS OR 24 WEEKS  The goal is to have the student reach their classes normal reading level. This is obtained from the school’s policy of what is grade level for the specific period that the student reaches that 12 week mark  When the student is nearing the 12 week period, the Reading Re- covery teacher starts conferring with the classroom teacher and observing the student in their class. Some key questions that needs to be answered are: Is the child ready to do their reading work independently (when required)? How are they doing in their Guided Reading Group?  If the classroom teacher feels that the child is ready to be returned to the class they are ‘discontinued’ and the intervention is viewed as successful DISCONTINUED  When a Reading Recovery student is reading at grade level, RR then assesses the student again with the Observation Survey—but this time it is done by another Reading Recovery teacher (not the student’s Reading Recovery teacher)  The student must achieve grade level scores on the Observation Survey, as well as have the Reading Recovery teacher’s Teacher Leader approval that the student is at grade level and can work independently at grade level in their classroom  If the child is assessed at 12 weeks and all involved feel the child isn’t ready, there is the option to let the child remain in Reading Recovery for another 12 week round.  If a child is not discontinued, they are returned to the classroom with the recommendation of further intervention with other specialists (i.e., Spec Ed, etc)