Reading Recovery
Reading recovery is a school-based, short-term intervention designed for children aged five or six, who are the lowest achieveing in literacy after their first year of school. For instance, a child who is unable to read the simplest of books or write their own name after a year would be appropriat for a referral to a Reading Recovery programme. The intervention involves intensive one-to-one lessons for 30 minutes a day with a trained literacy teacher, for between 12 and 20 weeks. The intervention goal is to bring children up to the level of their peers and to give them the assistance they need to develop independent reading and writing strategies. Once they are reading and writing at a level equivalent to that of their peers, their series of lessons is discontinued. The intervention is not intended as an alternative to classroom teaching, but is complementary to enable children to engage in their classroom programme.