Institute of Education London

European Centre for Reading Recovery (ECRR)

Reading Recovery is a school-based, short-term intervention designed for children aged between five and six, who are the lowest literacy achievers after their first year of school. These children are often not able to read the simplest of books or even write their own name before the intervention.

The intervention involves intensive one-to-one lessons for 30 minutes a day with a trained Reading Recovery teacher, for an average of 20 weeks (about two terms). The programme is different for every child, assessing what the child knows and what he/she needs to learn next. The focus of each lesson is to comprehend messages in reading and construct messages in writing; learning how to attend to detail without losing focus on meaning.

Children complete the intervention when an independent observer judges them as able to read and write without help, within the appropriate band for their age. On average, children who have completed have gone from text level 0 to a level 17 (results from 2010-11 annual report); these are books with elaborated episodes and events, extended descriptions, some literary language, full pages of print, more unusual and challenging vocabulary and less support from illustrations. Progress continues after the intervention, with children making on average one month's gain with each month that passes.

Children who do not make these gains are referred back to the school for long-term support (one in five from 2010-11 annual report). However they too make considerable improvements, making one year's gain in six months, and on average going from a text level 0 to a level 9; these are simple story books with some repetition of phrase patterns, ideas and vocabulary, several lines of text and around 20-40 words per page.

Reading Recovery is the foundation intervention for Every Child a Reader (ECaR).

Key achievements of Reading Recovery

• In 2010-11 nearly 150 authorities/districts implemented Reading Recovery, with over 2,700 schools served
• Over 24,000 children received Reading Recovery in 2010-11. 81% of the children who left the programme were regarded as having developed sufficient strategies to enable them to continue to consolidate their literacy learning within the classroom and to be able to access the mainstream curriculum alongside their peers
• Given that about half the children who receive Reading Recovery in the UK come from disadvantaged backgrounds and receive free school meals, these achievements are taking place in the face of considerable adversity