Reading Recovery Lesson and RTI

A Reading Recovery Lesson

Each Reading Recovery lesson incorporates the five components identified by the federal Elementary and Secondary Education Act as essential in a comprehensive instructional program in reading. The five components are:

  • Phonemic awareness
  • Phonics instruction
  • Fluency instruction,
  • Vocabulary instruction
  • Text comprehension instruction

Accelerated learning is possible because Reading Recovery teachers base their instruction on carefully documented daily observations of what each child already knows about reading and writing. This is an efficient approach that allows all future instruction to work from the child's strengths.

There are two possible outcomes after a full series of Reading Recovery lessons, both positive:

  • The child makes accelerated progress and continues to progress thereafter with classroom instruction. (Nationally about 75% of children successfully complete lessons.)
  • Additional evaluation is recommended and further action is initiated to help the child continue making progress. This is a positive outcome, because Reading Recovery's diagnostic teaching helps identify children who need more help and provides a documented record of the child's knowledge and strength as a base for future learning.

A key premise of Reading Recovery is that early intervention in first grade is critical. Research shows that children who fall behind in Grade 1 tend to remain below grade level in later years.

Early intervention is important because the gap between the lowest and highest performing children is narrow in lower grades but widens later in elementary school.

Although all children progress through their Reading Recovery lessons, a few do not make the accelerated progress needed to succeed without extra help. These children may be recommended for additional intervention.

Reading Recovery has been reconstructed in Spanish as Descubriendo la Lectura. It has also been reconstructed in French.

Response to Intervention

Contribution of Reading Recovery Professional Development to a Comprehensive System of Learning Supports

Reading Recovery is used as part of a systemic intervention model for academics. Classroom teachers who are trained in Reading Recovery provide high quality instruction and daily progress monitoring of children in Tier I within a Response to Intervention (RTI) model.

Within that model, children who do not make progress with classroom instruction (Tier I) are provided Reading Recovery as an intensive intervention (Tier II) before any referral to special education (Tier III). Literacy Lessons professional development can enhance instructions at this top tier.

RTI
Category Description Tier
Special Education For students who did not respond to the intervention III
Reading Recovery For students who did not respond to classroom instruction II
Classroom Instruction For all students I

Because Reading Recovery teachers typically work as Title I teachers or classroom teachers during the other half of their teaching assignments, Reading Recovery professional development benefits Tier I (Classroom) instruction and more intensive one-to-one instruction (Reading Recovery) which follows in Tier II.

Kim Reynolds in a Reading Recovery lesson