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Early Research
The two year programme of research and development undertaken to explore the extent to which an early intervention could undercut literacy failure in an education system, together with the following field trial research that led to the implementation of Reading Recovery can be found in Reading Recovery;
A Guidebook for Teachers in Training, pages 60-97 (Clay,
1993). This section also describes the intensive research effort that immediately followed its introduction into schools, such as a one-year follow-up, replication study, an analysis of lesson content, a three-year follow-up study and a subgroups study.
For an external perspective of Reading Recovery in New Zealand
read Reading Recovery in New Zealand: A Report from the
Office of Her Majesty's Chief Inspector of Schools (1994); available at www.tso.co.uk/bookshop.
Research as Quality Assurance
It is a structural feature of every Reading Recovery implementation worldwide to annually report progress and outcome data for every child receiving tuition. This information is used by administrators and Reading Recovery practitioners to monitor effectiveness, ensure a high quality of delivery, and to continuously assess and re-adjust the design of the implementation. In New Zealand this information is gathered online directly from schools by the Ministry of Education and published as a report on the Ministry of Education website. Recent reports can be found at www.minedu.govt.nz.
In the United States of America, the National Data Evaluation Centre (NDEC), Ohio State University, collects data from all Reading Recovery sites across the nation each year (including Descubriendo La Lectura - Reading Recovery in Spanish). NDEC publishes a comprehensive Technical Report that comprises a number of research questions answered mainly with different types of quantitative analyses in tabular and graphic form; see http://ndec.reading-recovery.org.
This data from annual monitoring, replicated across very many locations in several countries for a number of years is remarkably consistent. For New Zealand research see 'Trends in Reading Recovery Data Between 1984 and 1998' in Bulletin No. 10. October 1999.
Investigative Research
Reading Recovery is the subject of many hundreds of studies and projects, from undergraduate coursework to large-scale government funded projects. Careful assessment of the adequacy of the research design is essential in interpreting the results from any particular study. Change Over Time in Children's Literacy Development (Clay, 2001) contains both a comprehensive reference list, pages 311-323, and Clay's retrospective views on Reading Recovery research, pages 245-281.
The Reading Recovery Council of North America, RRCNA, publishes
a great range of reference and research material, which can
be ordered or downloaded from the RRCNA website, www.readingrecovery.org.
Publications include the peer reviewed biannual journal, Literacy
Teaching and Learning; An International Journal of Early Literacy,
containing relevant research articles by researchers both
affiliated to and independent of Reading Recovery from research
institutions around the world. Also available
is Changing futures; the influence of Reading Recovery in the United States (Schmitt et. Al. 2005) which provides an historical and theoretical background as well as catalogues and reviews the more influential studies that, from a wide range of theoretical perspectives and research methodologies, have been undertaken to investigate Reading Recovery. RRCNA has also published this year Six Reading Recovery studies: Meeting the criteria for scientifically based research by the North American Trainers Group Research Committee (see RRCNA website)
Recent Notable Research and Publications
• Reading Recovery in New Zealand; Uptake implementation and outcomes especially in relation to Maori and Pasifika children, by Sue McDowall, Sally Boyd, and Edith Hodgen, with Toni van Vliet, published by New Zealand Council for Educational Research 2005. Released December 2005, see Ministry website www.minedu.govt.nz or www.nzcer.org.nz for further information and executive summary. This is a comprehensive study undertaken by the New Zealand Council for Educational Research for the New Zealand Ministry of Education in 2004. It includes interviews and surveys of Reading Recovery professionals, and teachers and principals of both Reading Recovery and non-Reading Recovery schools. There is a close analysis of the 2003 Ministry of Education national child and school data and a description of eight case study schools, from a range of low socio-economic settings, with high proportions of Maori and Pasifika students and effective Reading Recovery interventions.
For report visit http://www.tki.org.nz/r/literacy_numeracy/pdf/reading_rec_uptake.pdf
• A Meta-Analysis of Reading Recovery in United States Schools, D'Agostino, Jerome V., and Murphy, Judith A., in Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, Spring 2004, Vol. 26, No. 1, pp. 23-38. Richard Allington's IRA President's Message (Reading Today June/July 2005 www.reading.org) notes that this research, which showed strikingly positive effects on reading achievement, has been included on the U.S. Department of Education's list of "Gold Standard" findings.
• Literacy Learning of At-Risk First-Grade Students in the Reading Recovery Early Intervention, Schwartz, Robert M., in Journal of Educational Psychology 2005, Vol 97 No. 2, 257-267. In this carefully designed study into the effectiveness of Reading Recovery there is some useful commentary on recent New Zealand research.
• The long term costs of literacy difficulties., KPMG Foundation (2006). This study calculates in detail the cost savings that would accrue to the public purse by the system-wide implementation of Reading Recovery in England and Wales.
 Click here to view report
• What Works Clearinghouse; Intervention; Reading Recovery (2007). What Works Clearinghouse, a branch of the United States Department of Education (USDE) and the Institute of Education Sciences (IES), released a 3-year independent review of the experimental research on Reading Recovery in March 2007. This authoritative, independent assessment clearly establishes that Reading Recovery is an effective intervention based on scientific evidence.
Click here to view report
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