What is Reading Recovery?

First graders who are experiencing difficulty with reading skills are given a series of observation tasks. A trained Reading Recovery teacher evaluates the student's skills in *letter recognition *word identification *concepts of print or general awareness of how print works *fluency in writing words *hearing sounds in words. Then the student's reading level is determined. Based on these observations, a student's strengths and areas of concern are identified. This information is used to plan the student's daily Reading Recovery lesson.

For up to 20 weeks, the student receives a daily 30-minute individual session with a Reading Recovery teacher. This lesson is in addition to the reading instruction in the classroom. During a Reading Recovery lesson, the student is involved in whole-language learning tasks. Each lesson is built on what the student already knows and emphasizes teaching strategies to make the child a successful reader and writer. The organization of the lesson is the same for each lesson. However, the content, skills and strategies taught are different for each child. The structure of the lesson includes:

Reading Familiar Books At the beginning of every lesson, the child gets to read two or three familiar books. They get to pick some of their favorite stories. This part is supposed to be easy for them. They try to read their books fluently, like a storyteller or people talking.

Taking a running record Next, the child has a book to read all by themselves.  The teacher listens as they read and takes a running record.  They read this book without any help from the teacher, unless they really get stuck.  Then the teacher tells them the word.  The child read this book the day before and the teacher helped them work through the tricky parts.  This is one of the books the child will bring home to read to you.

Letter identification or word analysis Throughout the lesson, the child may need to work on learning about letters, sounds, or important parts of words. They get to use magnetic letters, dry erase boards, and other fun ways to help them with their learning.

Writing a Story Every day they get to create their own story to write in their writing book. Usually they write about one of the books they’re reading to show they understand it, but sometimes they choose to write about exciting things in their life. They can write a lot of words all by themselves. The teacher helps them work to figure out how to write new words. They like to read their stories when they are finished.

Cut-Up Sentence The teacher writes the child's story on a long strip of paper.  The teacher cuts it up into different pieces so the child can put it back together again.  The sentence is cut up all different ways depending on what the teacher wants the child to focus on that day.  After they put the sentence back together, they must check it to see if it is right.  This sentence will come home with the child to be put together again and read for practice.

New book introduction The teacher picks out a new story and tells the child a little bit about it.  Together, they look at some of the pictures and talk about what is happening.  they talk about what the characters might be saying.  The teacher also helps the child think about some new, important words in the book.

New book reading Now the child gets the chance to put all they’ve learned into action!  They get to read their new book.  When they come to a hard part, the teacher coaches them to help them think about how they can help themselves.  The teacher shows the child what they can think about or do to work through the hard parts.  They work hard on this story so they will be ready to read it all by themselves in their next lesson.

Discontinuing or exiting If a child is doing very well and has the skills to extend their reading to other texts to continue to grow in the classroom based on the Reading Recovery and the classroom teacher’s observations and assessments, the child could discontinue lessons early. If they need the full 20 weeks but show those skills by the end they can still successfully discontinue. If they are still struggling and don’t show the necessary skills to keep growing in the classroom without support, they will exit Reading Recovery and a new plan of action for intervention will be developed by the school team and parents.