Memorandum submitted by the Reading Recovery
National Network, Institute of Education, University of London
ADDRESSING UNACCEPTABLE
LEVELS OF
UNDERACHIEVEMENT IN
LITERACY
1. Too many children fail to reach adequate
levels of literacy
Whatever the impact of recent developments in
the teaching of literacy, there has been little improvement at
the lower end of the achievement spectrum. The education system
in England is still failing to meet the needs of a significant
proportion of children who leave school with inadequate literacy
for the demands of the modern world.
2. Long term costs of literacy difficulties
Failure to provide an effective and early solution
to literacy problems has high and escalating costs—financially,
socially and emotionally. Some costs are overt, such as SEN budgets
and claims for compensation. Some costs are hidden such as year-on-year
learning support, or the impact upon behaviour, motivation and
social integration. Some costs occur much later, for example through
the connection between poor literacy and crime.
3. Difficulty of remediation
Whilst many literacy interventions exist, few
are effective for the least able children and few are sufficiently
powerful to fully overcome these children's problems in reading
and writing. The NLS suggest that, to be effective, an intervention
must enable the children who are failing to make at least twice
the normal rate of progress in order to catch up.
4. Importance of early intervention
Literacy failure is not an absence of learning.
Struggling readers acquire ways of "surviving" in the
classroom, including copying others, guessing, distracting and
disrupting behaviours. The longer these unhelpful strategies go
unchecked, the harder they are to remedy. Very early in the child's
school experience, negative feelings of confusion, frustration,
inadequacy and humiliation can become barriers to learning. The
link between poor literacy skills and deviant anti-social behaviour
are proven, eg one in three people in prison have very poor literacy
skills.
5. Reading Recovery
Reading Recovery is an effective early literacy
intervention, with proven results in the most challenging settings.
It is specifically designed for the lowest attaining children,
who have made least progress in their class in their first year
at school. Through focussed, intensive, daily teaching it solves
literacy problems, lifting four out of five struggling readers
to age appropriate levels of reading and writing. It does so within
15 to 20 weeks, after which the children continue to learn at
the normal rate of progress of their peers, without further need
of special support. The programme has been shown to be especially
effective for children from disadvantaged backgrounds and for
boys. Reading Recovery teachers have an exceptional level of knowledge,
understanding and skill, acquired through an intensive professional
development course. They become early literacy experts, able to
influence and support literacy teaching and learning in their
school.
6. Evidence for the effectiveness of Reading
Recovery
Reading Recovery has operated successfully in
England since 1990. Every child's progress is monitored at school,
LEA and national levels. There is substantial research evidence
to support its claims and it has been the subject of several independent
evaluations nationally and internationally. Four out of five of
the lowest attaining children are successfully returned to age
appropriate levels of literacy and the proportion of children
failing to reach age-appropriate levels in End of Key Stage Assessments
are reduced by 60%.
7. Support for Reading Recovery
The programme has widespread support, from parents
who have seen their child's attitude to school transformed; from
teachers who feel empowered by the satisfaction of making a real
difference; by schools which have seen the wider impact of raised
expectations of what is possible for disadvantaged children. Many
Ofsted reports for schools and LEAs have identified the implementation
of Reading Recovery as a strength. The National Literacy Strategy
recommends Reading Recovery as an effective Wave 3 intervention;
successive Ministers of Education of both parties have expressed
their appreciation for Reading Recovery and the DfES have, for
a number of years, provided some financial support for national
coordination of the programme at the Institute of Education.
8. The financial status of Reading Recovery
Reading Recovery is a not-for-profit educational
programme, based within schools, and coordinated at the Institute
of Education, University of London. The most significant cost
is the release of a teacher to work with individual children,
usually about 0.5 of a teacher's time.
9. Crisis of access to Reading Recovery
The implementation of Reading Recovery is under
serious threat in England. In the past three years, schools in
England have reported increasing difficulty in their ability to
fund the programme for their least able children and six longstanding
LEAs have ceased their implementation, with three more currently
at risk. Lack of funding has been the principle reason given for
closures.
APPENDIX 1
TOO MANY
CHILDREN FAIL
TO REACH
ADEQUATE LEVELS
OF LITERACY:
1. International studies such as PIRLS (2001)
and PISA (2003) study have consistently highlighted the long tail
of underachievement in literacy in the UK.
2. The proportion of children leaving primary
school with "no useful literacy", ie attaining below
National Curriculum level 3, has remained at 7%.
3. A recent Ofsted report (December 2004)
highlighted the widening gap in literacy between the lowest achieving
children and their peers.
APPENDIX 2
LONG TERM
COSTS OF
LITERACY DIFFICULTIES
2. (a) Wider Benefits of Learning Reports
Leon Feinstein, 1999, Quantitative Estimates
of the Social benefits of learning, 1: Crime published by
The Centre for Research on the Wider Benefits of Learning, Institute
of Education, University of London
— A 10% rise in the average pay of
those on low pay in an area reduces the overall area property
crime by between 0.7 and 1.0 percentage points, estimated benefit
between £1.3 and £1.8 billion in an average year. (Executive
summary page iii)
— A 1% increase in the proportion of
the working age population with "O"-level or equivalent
qualifications, would give a predicted benefit (on property crime)
between £10 million and £320 million. (Executive summary
page iv)
— "Effects of increases below
O-level are trivial but it is estimated that a 5% increase in
the population with O-level or equivalent qualifications will
produce a reduction in crime with a benefit of up to £1.6
billion per year" Page 24 (which is why interventions which
only boost children's literacy a little are not powerful enough
to get children on track for achieving the equivalent of "O"-level—RR
comment).
— Education can have an affect on crime
in a number of ways, through changes in behaviour or preferences
and resulting changes in opportunity, particularly through income.
One interesting study he reports is on patience and/or risk aversion,
and its link to crime, and another on "Delinquency and the
direct effects on the pleasure gained from crime", both of
which are affected by education. (Pages 7-9).
— Home Office report cited finding
that 12-16 year old boys who did not like school were three times
more likely to offend than those who liked school. (Page 28).
2. (b) The long term costs of literacy
difficulties: Basic Skills Agency reports
1. Bynner, J, and Parsons, S, 1997, It
Doesn't get any Better, The Basic Skills Agency, London
2. Parsons, S, 2002, Basic Skills and
Crime, The Basic Skills Agency, London.
In 1958 the National Child Development Study
in England identified 17,000 children born in one week in that
year. These children have been monitored and reported on throughout
their lives (A series of television programmes compared their
lives, experiences and views of the world at the ages of seven,
14 and 21). In 1995, as this cohort reached the age of 37, a representative
sample of 2,144 was identified. Those who had received further
education (at university or college level) were excluded and a
detailed survey made of the remaining 1,700. Their literacy and
numeracy was assessed and the participants grouped as either good,
average, low or very low basic literacy or numeracy. The study
paints a grim picture of life for those with poor literacy skills.
As expected they were more likely to be in low
paid jobs, unemployed, or dependent upon state benefits than those
with good literacy, or that they were less likely to have had
promotion, or work related training, but the degree of difference
is surprising.
Table 1
PROPORTION OF THE COHORT WITH NO QUALIFICATIONS
| | Men
| Women |
| Very low literacy | 46%
| 45% |
| Low literacy | 11%
| 17% |
| Average literacy | 10%
| 8% |
| Good literacy | 4%
| 1% |
| | |
|
Table 2
PROPORTION OF MEN LONG-TERM UNEMPLOYED/SICK
| Very Low literacy | 23% |
|
| Low literacy | 17%
|
| Average literacy | 4%
|
| Good literacy | 4%
|
| |
Table 3
PROPORTION OF COHORT ON LOW WAGES
| | Men
| Women |
| | (<£200)
| (<£150) |
| Very low and low literacy
| 42% | 53% |
| Average literacy | 35%
| 43% |
| Good literacy | 24%
| 39% |
| | |
|
They were also more likely to be in poor housing, and to
have poor health. Men with very low literacy skills, and women
with low literacy were twice as likely to have been classified
as depressed, than those with good literacy, but women with very
poor skills were five times more likely. Given the picture the
report paints of their lives since leaving school, one of insecurity,
dependency, and poverty, the most stalwart of us would probably
be depressed! These are the women bringing up the Reading Recovery
children of tomorrow.
The study also probed the attitudes of the cohort, and once
again the difference that very low literacy makes, even compared
with low literacy, is startling. Only half of the men in the very
low literacy group felt satisfied with their lives, compared with
almost eight out of 10 men with good literacy.
Table 4
VIEWS AND OUTLOOK (MEN)
| Very low | Low
| Average | Good
|
| Satisfied with life so far | 50%
| 76% | 75% | 78%
|
| Never get what want from life | 41%
| 24% | 24% | 18%
|
| No control over events in life | 23%
| 18% | 11% | 8%
|
| Have to be careful who to trust | 45%
| 38% | 31% | 23%
|
| | |
| |
So just lifting a child out of the very low literacy group,
into the low literacy group, could make a profound difference
to the quality of their future life. This is still the outcome
for the one in five children who do not achieve the goals of Reading
Recovery.
In 2002 a further report by the Basic Skills Agency, "Basic
Skills and Crime" investigated the association between
poor literacy skills and crime. They found that as many as one
in two prisoners have difficulties reading, and that the link
appears to be worsening. Even after controlling for social disadvantage,
poverty, disruptive family environment, poor education experiences
and early signs of emotional and behaviour problems they found
a correlation between poor literacy scores and the number of times
30 year old men had been stopped and questioned or arrested.
In 1999 a Home Office report found that 12-16 year old boys
who did not like school were three times more likely to offend
than those who liked school. Can you think of anything more likely
to make teenage boys dislike school, than being unable to read
and write?
APPENDIX 3
DIFFICULTIES OF
REMEDIATION
1. In research commissioned by the DfES, (2002, What
Works for children with literacy difficulties?) Brooks evaluated
literacy interventions. Among his conclusions he stated that "Normal
schooling (`no treatment') does not enable slow readers to catch
up" and "Work on phonological skills should be embedded
in a broad approach." In Key Stage 1 only one other intervention
specifically reports data for the lowest attaining children; other
interventions subsume the lowest group in a wider attaining population
and only report gains for these norms. None other than Reading
Recovery present evidence of follow up monitoring and impact upon
National Assessments up to and including Key Stage 2.
2. The SCAA report (above) showed Reading Recovery to
be expensive but effective: "The experimental (RR) group
made mean gains of 16 months in word reading over the 8.5 months
of the intervention (with an effect size of 0.75), and these gains
were sustained. By contrast, the no-treatment controls made only
an eight-month gain. A very important finding of the study was
that the alternative treatment groups, which had been given a
sustained program to develop phonological awareness, made only
modest progress: Their mean reading gain was 10 months over the
8.5 months of the intervention (with an effect size close to zero).
The clear implication from (this) study is that, although phonological
awareness may be a good predictor of future success in reading,
interventions for poor readers that focus on phonological awareness
alone will have very limited success." Harrison, C, (2000)
Reading Research in the United Kingdom, in Handbook of Reading
Research Vol III, Kamil, Mosenthal, Pearson and Barr (Eds),
Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
APPENDIX 4
THE IMPORTANCE
OF EARLY
INTERVENTION:
4a. The recently published Ofsted report on literacy
highlighted the problem of children who, even when they had acquired
functional literacy, did not enjoy reading, and therefore did
not choose to read. There is considerable evidence of the lasting
emotional legacy of early failure, which can only be prevented
by early, fast and effective intervention.
4b. Article accepted for publication, March 2005, Literacy
Today Magazine.
WHEN READING
IS NO
PLEASURE
Over the picture of a famous footballer, the caption declared
"Reading is Fun" but Steven's contemptuous look suggested
that he thought it was anything but. Steven had struggled with
reading since he first started school, and to him reading was
as much fun as a daily trip to the dentist. Success and failure
are powerful teachers.
Teaching children to be real readers is crucial; to value
reading as an activity, to find pleasure in books of all kinds.
But how can you love something that you cannot do? How can you
lose yourself in a book if reading is a struggle? How can reading
become a favourite activity if your experience of it is of embarrassment,
humiliation or tedium? If learning to read is fraught with confusion
and failure, the child is unlikely to become a real reader. If
he or she does not learn to read easily, early and effectively,
then even the most inspirational role models cannot make reading
fun. Even those who learn to read eventually are unlikely to enjoy
reading; it remains a mechanical tool, necessary to survive in
a print based world, rather than a meeting of minds with an author.
I recently interviewed children who, a year previously, had
completed a Reading Recovery programme. Now aged eight, they talked
about how much they enjoyed reading, how they loved to read at
home—one child was reading Treasure Island with his Mum
and loving it. But none of them commented on what it felt like
to be a struggling reader. This puzzled me because these children
had had reading problems. At the age of six they had been the
poorest readers in their year group, unable to read the simplest
text and heading for serious problems in their future education.
Then the penny dropped. Unlike Steven, these children had
never considered themselves reading failures because their literacy
problems had been solved before they realised they had a problem.
Not just alleviated, but solved. Reading Recovery had stepped
in early, before their difficulties could become entrenched, and
the teaching had been precise and intensive, so that they learned
quickly enough to catch up with their more able classmates. Within
a few weeks, all four children had begun to read independently
and within a few months they had reached appropriate levels of
literacy for their age. The result was not just that they could
read, but that they enjoyed reading.
What makes this possible? In Reading Recovery, teaching begins
with what the child can do, however little, giving him a sense
of growing control over the reading process. The teacher carefully
selects tasks at the cutting edge of the child's learning, so
that although he makes rapid progress, it always feels easy. The
daily half-hour lesson is centred on reading several little books
and writing short stories. The aim is that the child never finds
anything hard—challenging yes, but there is the subtle difference
we all recognise between being challenged, when we feel confident
that we can achieve, and being overwhelmed when we fear we can't.
Children in Reading Recovery learn how to treat the new and unknown
as puzzles to be solved, not problems to be feared. From the beginning
the child is successful and becomes confident, not because he
is told that he is doing well, but because he learns how to unpick
the problems in reading and writing, and comes to trust his own
judgement. He learns to read fluently from the start and to think
about what he is reading.
For children who do not learn to read easily, our challenge
is to overcome their problems as quickly and completely as possible
and Reading Recovery has shown that this can be achieved for almost
every child. So what are the chances that our least able children
will receive the Reading Recovery programme they need? In Northern
Ireland the chances are good; the implementation there is supported
by the Government, whose stated aim is to make it available in
every Primary School. Elsewhere in the UK it's a mixed picture.
In England 2,225 Reading Recovery teachers have been trained,
but only 350 are currently able to implement it. In primary schools
beset with problems, first with teacher recruitment then with
funding, our most vulnerable children have lost out. Reading Recovery
suffers from the mistaken belief that it is an expensive luxury
because it costs more than most teaching. Building roofs costs
more than building walls; intensive care costs more than general
nursing, but is that a reason to suppose we can do without them?
Intensive intervention costs more because it deals with a complex
problem, children at exceptional risk of failure. The long-term
costs of literacy failure are huge and well documented, and "cheap"
alternatives are not cheap if they don't solve the problem. Reading
Recovery costs around £1,500 per child—for the love
of reading it's a small price to pay.
The Reading Recovery National Network website is www.readingrecovery.org.uk.
APPENDIX 5
READING RECOVERY
The lowest attaining children present very diverse and complex
problems. Simplistic responses to underachievement, including
"one size fits all" approaches, are unlikely to be effective
with more than a very small proportion of children. Reading Recovery
enables exceptionally skilled teachers to work with the complexity
of the literacy learning task and with children's individual experience,
confusions and learning styles. More detailed information about
the Reading Recovery programme can be found on the Reading Recovery
website at www.readingrecovery.org.uk.
APPENDIX 6
EVIDENCE FOR
THE EFFECTIVENESS
OF READING
RECOVERY
6a. Annual National Monitoring. Approximately 3,500 children
in the UK complete the programme each year, and every child's
progress is monitored at school, LEA and National levels, before,
during and after the programme, including their subsequent performance
in National assessments at seven and eleven.
1. Which children receive Reading Recovery?
YEAR GROUP
Children are normally identified and selected for Reading
Recovery between the ages of five years nine months and six years
three months, after a full year of formal tuition at school. Local
conditions, eg admission policies or national assessments, may
influence the targeting of resources towards the first or second
year (after reception) and account is taken of date of birth to
ensure that summer born children are not excluded.
GENDER
Children are selected for Reading Recovery based on literacy
levels. Nationally, a higher proportion is selected of boys than
girls for Reading Recovery. This suggests that factors which affect
boys' literacy, causing them to be more likely to get into difficulties,
emerge early and continue to exist in spite of improvements in
literacy teaching in schools.
FIRST LANGUAGE
Approximately 5% of the entire primary school population
speaks English as an additional language. Among Reading Recovery
children this statistic varies considerably from place to place
and the extent of their control of English language is also very
variable.
FREE SCHOOL
MEALS
Although a crude measure, entitlement to free school meals
offers an indicator of economic deprivation. Research has shown
persistent links between economic deprivation and literacy difficulties.
In the general population, approximately 18% of children are entitled
to free school meals.
Table 1 below shows the make-up of the Reading Recovery cohort
in 2003-04. The majority of children identified for Reading Recovery
are in Y1 (P2 in Northern Ireland), and most complete their programme
within the year, although some may be taken into the programme
later in the year, completing in the following year. In common
with many studies, boys continue to outnumber girls among the
lowest attaining children identified for Reading Recovery by around
two to one. Four out of ten of children in Reading Recovery were
from economically disadvantaged homes.
Table 1
CHARACTERISTICS OF CHILDREN PARTICIPATING IN READING RECOVERY
AT ENTRY TO THE PROGRAMME: THE UNITED KINGDOM, 2003-04
| Description | All children
|
| | number
| % |
| Year Group |
| |
| Y1/P2 | 3,218
| 65 |
| Y2/P3 | 1,661
| 33 |
| Y3/P4 | 87
| 2 |
| Programme Started
| | |
| This year | 3,935
| 79.1 |
| Last year | 827
| 16.6 |
| Not recorded | 211
| 4.2 |
| Gender |
| |
| Boys | 3,037
| 61.1 |
| Girls | 1,933
| 38.9 |
| Not recorded | 3
| 0.1 |
| First Language |
| |
| English | 4,622
| 92.9 |
| Not English | 335
| 6.7 |
| Not recorded | 16
| 0.3 |
| Free School Meals
| | |
| Entitled | 1,945
| 39.1 |
| Not entitled | 2,987
| 60.1 |
| Not known | 41
| 0.8 |
| | |
|
What were the programme outcomes for Reading Recovery children?
There were five possible outcomes for children who received
Reading Recovery.
1. Accelerated Progress (Discontinued): These children
have made sufficient progress in literacy learning, within the
time available, to catch up with the average band for their class,
and have been judged to be likely to continue learning at the
same rate as their peers, without the need for further special
support.
2. Progress (Referred): The children have made progress,
but have not reached the average band in literacy and will continue
to need additional support.
3. Ongoing: These children started the programme late
in the school year, and have not yet completed it, but will do
so in the new school year.
4. Left: These children left the school part way through
their programme.
5. Incomplete: These children were part way through their
series of lessons when the programme had to be suspended, eg,
because of withdrawal of funding.
Table 2
PROGRAMME OUTCOMES FOR CHILDREN RECEIVING READING RECOVERY:
BY PROGRAMME COMPLETION, THE UNITED KINGDOM, 2003-04
| Outcome | All Programmes
| Completed Programmes
|
| Number | %
| Number | % |
| Accelerated progress (discontinued) | 3,020
| 60.7 | 3,020 | 83.3
|
| Progress (referred) | 606 |
12.2 | 606 | 16.7
|
| Ongoing | 898 | 18.1
| | |
| Left | 179 | 3.6
| | |
| Incomplete | 75 | 1.5
| | |
| Not known | 195 | 3.9
| | |
Note: "All Programmes" includes every child entering Reading Recovery in 2003-04. "Completed Programmes" are only those children whose programmes were actually completed during 2003-04.
Source: National Data Evaluation Center, Annual Data Collection: 2003-04.
| | | |
|
What were the literacy levels of children in the Reading Recovery
programme?
Children selected for Reading Recovery are the lowest achieving
in their class on six measures of early literacy which together
comprise the Observation Survey (Clay, 2002). These measures are
Book Level (captured by running record of text reading), Letter
Identification, Concepts about Print, Word Reading Test, Writing
Vocabulary and Hearing and Recording Sounds in Words. In addition,
the British Abilities Scale Word Reading assessment is administered
to provide an external standardised assessment. The programme
is discontinued when children are judged to have an efficient
reading and writing process in place and to be operating within
the average band for their class and age. Children who do not
achieve the accelerated progress required for the programme to
be discontinued are referred back to the school for longer-term
support.
AVERAGE SCORES
AT ENTRY
AND EXIT
Table 3
SCORES ON OBSERVATION SURVEY TASKS OF CHILDREN WITH COMPLETED
READING RECOVERY PROGRAMMES: AT ENTRY TO AND EXIT FROM THE PROGRAMME,
THE UNITED KINGDOM, 2003-04
| | Book Level
| Letter Identification
| Concepts about Print
| Word Test | Writing Vocabulary
| HRS/W |
| Assessment Point | Total
Pupils
| Mean | SD |
Mean | SD | Mean
| SD | Mean |
SD | Mean | SD
| Mean | SD |
| Entry | 3,606 | 1.8
| 2.5 | 40.3 | 12.9
| 12.7 | 3.9 | 7.3
| 5.6 | 11.8 | 10.3
| 17.1 | 10.2 |
At discontinuing
(accelerated progress)
| 3,006 | 17 | 2.6
| 52.2 | 6.3 | 20.2
| 3 | 20.4 | 3.6
| 49.7 | 16.7 | 34.3
| 4.5 |
| At referral (progress) | 597 |
8.7 | 3.8 | 47.2 |
9.5 | 16.3 | 4
| 14 | 5.7 | 27.6
| 15.1 | 26.9 | 8.7
|
| | |
| | | |
| | | |
| | |
Note: "HRSIW" is the Hearing and Recording
Sounds in Words task.
Source: National Data Evaluation Center, Annual Data
Collection: 2003-04.
Children in the UK came into Reading Recovery at very low
levels of literacy, and two thirds are still unable to read even
the simplest texts, after at least one full year at school and,
in England, daily experience of the Literacy Hour. One in three
can read nothing more than their own name, if that.
For out of five children are lifted to a level of text reading
featuring elaborated episodes and events, extended descriptions,
more use of literary language, full pages of print and more unusual
and challenging vocabulary.
One in four children, who do not achieve accelerated learning,
nevertheless do make considerable progress and can no longer be
described as non-readers, reaching text levels featuring multiple
lines of text, with 20-40 words per page, variation of sentence
structure and story lines which include episodes following a time
sequence and some literary conventions along with familiar oral
language structures.
WHAT WERE
THE RESULTS
OF NATIONAL
ASSESSMENTS FOR
READING RECOVERY
CHILDREN?
Children in England sit national assessments (SATs) in reading
and writing at the end of their second year of formal schooling
(Y2). The national target is level 2. Children identified for
Reading Recovery are the lowest achieving in their class, and
would be predicted to reach levels W or 1 without the intervention.
Nevertheless, 70% of all children who received Reading Recovery
reached SATs level 2 or above in reading and more than 60% in
writing. This figure includes children who did not make accelerated
progress and children who were still only part way through their
Reading Recovery programme when taking SATs. Among children who
achieved accelerated learning, more than 80% achieved Level 2
or above in reading and more than 70% in writing.
Table 4
KEY STAGE 1 SATS LEVELS OF READING RECOVERY CHILDREN:
BY PROGRAMME OUTCOME, THE UNITED KINGDOM, 2003-04
| Programme Outcome/ |
Key Stage 1 Reading | Key Stage 1 Writing
|
| SATs Level | number
| % | number |
% |
| Accelerated progress (discontinued)
| | | |
| W | 1 | 0.1
| 9 | 1.1 |
| 1 | 147 |
17.3 | 233 | 27.4 |
| 2c | 257 |
30.2 | 339 | 39.9 |
| 2b | 324 |
38.1 | 209 | 24.6 |
| 2a | 110 |
12.9 | 53 | 6.2 |
| 3 | 11 |
1.3 | 6 | 0.7 |
| All completed programmes
| | | |
|
| W | 26 |
2.4 | 50 | 4.7 |
| 1 | 298 |
27.9 | 363 | 34.1 |
| 2c | 290 |
27.2 | 381 | 35.7 |
| 2b | 332 |
31.1 | 213 | 20
|
| 2a | 110 |
10.3 | 53 | 5
|
| 3 | 11 |
1 | 6 | 0.6 |
| |
| | | |
Note: "All completed programmes" includes
those children who made progress (referred) and made accelerated
progress (discontinued).
Source: National Data Evaluation Center, Annual Data
Collection: 2003-04.
End of KS2: In 2003 a survey was made of children
who had received Reading Recovery five years previously, in 1997-98.
In a sample of more than 600 children, including those who did
not achieve accelerated learning, half of the children reached
Level 4 and above in National Curriculum end of Key Stage tests,
and only 20% failed to reach level 3. That is 20% of the lowest
attaining one-fifth of the age cohort, or 4% of the whole age
cohort, suggesting that Reading Recovery could almost halve the
number of children leaving Key Stage 2 with no useful literacy,
and significantly increase the number of the lowest attaining
children progressing to Level 4 and above.
|
All children
| Children who achieved
accelerated learning
| |
| | Number
| % | Number |
% |
| No level available | 131
| 20 | 60 | 14 |
| Level 2 | 4
| 0 | 1 | 0 |
| 3 | 185 |
28 | 116 | 27 |
| 4 | 266 |
41 | 207 | 47 |
| 5 | 65 |
10 | 53 | 12 |
| Total | 651
| | 437 | |
| | |
| | |
National curriculum tests in reading for Reading Recovery children
at end of KS2
Children who had achieved accelerated learning in Reading
Recovery at age six were even more successful at age 11, with
59% reaching Level 4 and above, and only 14% failing to reach
Level 3.
It should be borne in mind that these children received Reading
Recovery in 1997 and 1998. Since then the Reading Recovery implementation
has shown year on year improvements in the number of children
achieving accelerated learning, and the levels of text reading
reached by those children. It may be expected that these year
on year improvements will lead to higher proportions of ex-Reading
Recovery children reaching Level 4 and above in End of KS2 National
Curriculum tests in the future, and even fewer failing to reach
Level 3. The implementation in England has always been targeted
to areas of particular difficulty, in some LEAs it is almost exclusively
targeted to failing schools, so that the sample of children is
inevitably skewed to the most challenging.
Even in the most challenging circumstances, five years after
their Reading Recovery programme half of the children who received
the intervention reached Level 4 and above in National Curriculum
tests at end of KS2, and only one in five failed to reach level
3. Given that these were initially the lowest attaining children,
who had made very little progress in learning to read in their
first year in school, and were the children most likely to fail
to reach national standards, this represents a considerable long-term
advantage for children who received the Reading Recovery programme.
APPENDIX 7
SUPPORT FOR
READING RECOVERY
7a. Ofsted Reports
Below are extracts from a small sample of Ofsted reports
mentioning Reading Recovery
Thomas Fairchild Community School, Hackney
Para 15. The Reading Recovery and Numeracy Recovery programmes
are taught very well and contribute significantly to pupils' achievement.
Para 23. The school analyses how well individuals are achieving
and is particularly successful in early intervention to support
language and numeracy development in Years 1 and 2. Reading Recovery,
Numeracy Recovery and work to support pupils with English as an
additional language are important elements in the school's provision.
Para 34. Investment in Reading Recovery, Numeracy Recovery
and support for pupils with English as an additional language
is leading to higher achievement . . . In Years 1 and 2 the school
has put into place very effective early intervention strategies
to enable pupils to catch up and make good progress.
Main Strengths and Weaknesses
— Early intervention strategies are very successful
in raising reading standards.
Para 63. The Reading Recovery system, which operates in Y1,
is very successful in giving a boost to those who are struggling
at this early stage. The teaching in these sessions is of a very
high standard, enabling pupils to make very rapid progress.
Para 66. The subject leaders have done very well in establishing
and implementing strategies, like Reading Recovery and Talking
Partners, which are having a beneficial effect on pupil achievement.
St John of Jerusalem CE Primary School, Hackney
— Pupils with special educational needs make good
progress. Good teaching in withdrawal settings using the Reading
Recovery programme assists the pupils to make good progress in
reading.
— Work on the Reading Recovery programme is very
effective . . .
— The quality of provision in withdrawal sessions
for help with Reading Recovery is particularly good.
— The school has used the Reading Recovery programme,
and the Additional Literacy Support to help identified pupils
to benefit from additional focused literacy activities. They have
been effective in helping these pupils to make good progress.
Birley Spa Primary School, Sheffield
Page 8-9: Pupils with special educational needs in the main
school are supported well and make very good progress overall.
The school also employs a range of highly effective intervention
strategies, such as Reading Recovery and Additional Literacy Support,
which contribute significantly to raising children's achievement.
Page 10, para 4: One of the key strengths of the school is
the very good progress which it enables pupils to make. Many progress
from well below average attainment on entry to nursery to above
or well above average attainment as they leave the school. This
is achieved in part by the significant strength and consistency
of the teaching, and the very high expectations of the staff,
but also by a range of well managed and effective intervention
strategies, such as Reading Recovery and Additional Literacy Support,
together with the work of the learning Mentor. These do much to
boost pupil's achievements and ensure, for example, that there
is a steady turnover of pupils on the register of special educational
needs as temporary difficulties are resolved.
Page 16, para 25: Teaching for pupils with special educational
needs is very good. Consequently pupils achieve very well and
make very good progress overall against their individual targets.
. . . Many structures are in place to support pupils' needs, for
example Reading Recovery.
Page 32, para 87: Trends show that standards for older pupils
have improved greatly since the previous inspection. Detailed
analysis of the results show that pupils who have been on the
Reading Recovery programme made particularly good progress and
ultimately achieved high standards.
Broadmere Community Primary School, Woking, Surrey
Page 8: What the school does well
— "Reading Recovery" is a strength, and
is effectively underpinning the progress being made at the lower
end of the school.
Page 37, para 88: A Reading Recovery programme is supporting
pupils very well and helping them to gain a head start in overcoming
difficulties. In two weeks, for example, one pupil has moved from
dependency on the teacher to confidence in reading simple sentences,
and has also acquired a voice in expressing opinions and evaluating
her own contributions.
7b. See attached article written by a Bristol Headteacher,
Jennifer Holt, of Victoria Park Community Infant School, for the
LEA journal.
7c. See letter to TES written by Jean Gross, Senior Director
(Achievement and Inclusion) Primary National Strategy.
APPENDIX 8
THE FINANCIAL
STATUS OF
READING RECOVERY
Reading Recovery is a not-for-profit educational programme,
based within schools. The name Reading Recovery is trademarked
for quality assurance purposes, and the trade mark is held by
the Institute of Education, University of London, which accredits
training courses for the programme. National Co-ordination for
the programme is housed within the Institute, and is funded by
subscription from LEAs and a small grant from DfES. At school
level, the most significant cost is the release of a teacher to
work with individual children, usually about 0.5 of a teacher's
time. This is generally a achieved through school budgets with
support from the LEA, through Standards funds, EAZ, EiC etc.
It is estimated to cost schools around £1,500 per child,
mainly in teacher time, to implement Reading Recovery. This is
less than the cost of a fairly basic self-catering package holiday
in Spain, for two adults and two children. It's about the cost
of a home computer that will be obsolete within four years or
a wedding dress at the cheaper end of the spectrum, worn for one
day. It would pay for just six weeks at a top private school or
for twenty cigarettes a day for just one year. Are all of those
things really worth so much more than the difference between being
literate and illiterate?
In the QCA's evaluation of Reading Recovery of 1998 researchers
found that the "cost of Reading Recovery was substantially
more in the short term, but then so was the progress". They
observed that the costs associated with Reading Recovery in an
LEA were "probably an essential aspect of any well run special
needs section". They pointed out that it was a mistake to
assume that the kind of children who were eligible for Reading
Recovery were otherwise inexpensive to educate. These children,
in the bottom 20% of readers, usually need some form of specialised
help in the absence of Reading Recovery. And when they costed
the normal, in-school literacy support given to poor readers,
they found that, within two years, the amount spent had crept
up to half the cost of a Reading Recovery programme "for
negligible progress". And these costs would probably be incurred
again the next year, and the next, for the rest of the child's
school career.
The children for whom Reading Recovery is designed are costly
to educate. The question is, do we spend the money early, on a
programme which we know has a good chance of being effective,
or a little at a time over several years with, as research has
shown, little return for the outlay? The choice is not whether
or not to spend the money, but whether to spend it now on something
that works, or later picking up the pieces.
Reading Recovery costs more because it is designed to address
an expensive problem. In hospitals it costs more to provide intensive
care than general nursing, but is that a reason for not providing
intensive care? It costs more to lay sound foundations for a building
in a sandy district than in a rocky district, but would you want
to live in a house with inadequate foundations, just because you
lived in a sandy place? It costs more to lay the foundations of
literacy for children with complex barriers to their learning
than for those who learn easily, but is that an acceptable reason
for allowing them to fail?
APPENDIX 9
CRISIS OF
ACCESS TO
READING RECOVERY
In the past three years, schools in England have reported
a increasing difficulty in their ability to fund the programme
for their least able children. In one LEA thirty out of 59 schools
which had ceased Reading Recovery cited funding as the reason.
Since 2002 Reading Recovery has closed in six longstanding LEAs,
with three more currently at risk. Lack of funding has been the
principle reason given for closures. This occurs when LEAs can
no longer contribute to the cost in schools, leaving them to fund
teaching entirely from already hard pressed budgets; also when
personnel are promoted or retire, and the school or LEA cannot
find the cost of training a replacement.
9.a See Report of Reading Recovery in Sheffield.
9.b See Case studies of the implementation of Reading
Recovery in fur LEAs and their schools.
| LEA | Began
RR | Finished
RR
| No:
schools
in LEA | Total
no: RR
teachers
trained
| No:
teachers
now in RR | Funding
| Notes |
| Cheshire | 1993 | 2003
| 460 | 130 | 4
| SRB finished 2002 | Teachers now supported by Wirral
|
Greenwich | 1991 |
2003 | 78 | 75 |
1 | SRB finished 2002 | Supported Southend, Tower Hamlets, Westminster, Croydon
|
Halton | 1993 |
2002 | 76 | 37 |
1 | SRB finished | Teachers supported by Cheshire and now by Wirral
|
Southwark | 1992 |
2002 | 76 | 40 |
0
(last teachers
reported 2002) |
| Tutor may return to role, but no new RR teachers trained since 1997; centre dismantled
|
Stockton on
Tees | 2002
| 2003 | 63 | 0
| 0 | | Tutor has not been able to work in RR since completing training in 2003
|
Westminster | 1991
| 2003 | 38 | 76
| 1 | | Once supported teachers in Croydon and Brighton. Teachers supported by Greenwich, now by Hammersmith
|
| | |
| | | |
|
| 
