Thread by @TinaForKentucky

🧵A study has found that students who participated in Reading Recovery (RR) scored lower on third grade state reading tests than students of similar ability who don't do RR. @ehanford & @CLPeak
#teacherlegislator #iteachreading

1/25

npr.org/2022/05/05/109…

Here's an overview of the long-term effects of Reading Recovery and links to the working papers and presentation.

2/25

cresp.udel.edu/research-proje…

Dr. Henry May of @UDCRESP and James Chapman of @MasseyUni discuss the results of the study on "Long-term impacts of Reading Recovery through third and fourth grade." Students who participated in RR scored lower on state reading tests.

3/25

rnz.co.nz/national/progr…

Reading Recovery is pervasive and entrenched in KY districts and is generously funded.

➡️ $15m annual RTA Grant partially funds RR
➡️ $1.3m for the Collaborative Center for Literacy Development for RR training and Teacher Leader grants.

4/25

Reading Recovery is pervasive and entrenched in KY districts and is generously funded.

➡️ Millions in district funding. @JCPSKY has ~50 RR teachers at an approximate cost of $3.25m per year before teacher benefits.

5/25

Reading Recovery is a reading intervention for first graders. Instruction is 1:1 for 30 minutes a day for up to 20 weeks. A RR teacher only works with four students during each half of the year. In 20-21, 1403 students participated in RR in KY through the RTA Grant.

6/25

I asked for longitudinal data on achievement of RR students in KY.

❌ No, said @KyLiteracy, but @KyDeptofEd could cross-reference w assessment data, if requested.
❌ No, said @JCPSKY. 2011 was the last year that a study was completed.

So I did an open records request.

7/25

Only 9.3% of @JCPSKY Reading Recovery students scored proficient or distinguished on the third grade state reading test.

8/25

Statewide, @KyDeptofEd reported that only 11.3% of students who did Reading Recovery in first grade scored proficient or higher on the state reading test.

9/25

Reading Recovery practices have extended to general education curricula, including Jan Richardson Guided Reading (the reading program endorsed by @JCPSKY), Lucy Calkins' Units of Study, and Fountas & Pinnell Classroom.

10/25

Units of Study & F&P Classroom were whole language curricula that dabbled in phonics and rebranded as Balanced Literacy after the Nat'l Rdg Panel report.

Jan Richardson is a Reading Recovery teacher leader who scaled the program for general education classrooms.

11/25

Fountas & Pinnell Classroom and Lucy Calkins Units of Study recently got failing marks in two EdReports studies. @s_e_schwartz

12/25

edweek.org/teaching-learn…

Three aspects of Reading Recovery and Balanced Literacy programs that are concerning are:
1⃣ Phonics not taught systematically and explicitly
2⃣ Three-cueing method
3⃣ Predictable texts instead of decodable texts

13/25

@BerrinchudaM observed Balanced Literacy instruction during virtual learning and did a mini-study with her first-grade daughter titled "The Purple Challenge." Note the predictable text she is reading.

14/25

@BerrinchudaM continued her experiment by teaching her daughter the sound for "ur" and additional decoding support.

15/25

Lyn Stone @lifelonglit observed a Reading Recovery lesson.

She spent the observation time holding herself back from screaming, “What are you doing?! How is that going to help this child? What on Earth are you doing?”

16/25

lifelongliteracy.com/reading-recove…

1⃣ Phonics

Marie Clay, founder of Reading Recovery, was dead-set against systematic instruction in phonics and decoding. She believed that "children learn to read themselves ... as learning to read was akin to learning to speak.

17/25

thereadingape.com/single-post/20…

@StanDehaene disagrees. He states that “Learning whole words trains the wrong part of the brain” and that “Teaching of systematic grapheme to phoneme correspondences has the upper hand in making the fastest change in a child’s brain.”

18/25

2⃣ Three-cueing

With the three-cueing method, students are taught to look at the picture, reread the sentence, or predict the word based on the first letter instead of being asked to decode an unknown word.

19/25

breakingthecode.com/the-three-cuei…

3⃣ Predictable texts

Early this year, my kindergarten stu who knew some letter sounds, but few words, read "The spaceship was flying" in a predictable text during a Jan Richardson Guided Reading lesson. She did not have the skills to decode any of the words.

20/25

In contrast, I use decodable texts for my students from Flyleaf Publishing. Students read the words by evaluating the letter patterns which may be supported by the pictures.

21/25

In 2020, Lucy Calkins said "balanced literacy need some "rebalancing"" such as
1⃣ Explicit phonemic awareness instruction review of previously taught phonics material
2⃣ Decodable texts in the early stages of reading
3⃣ Decoding instead of 3-cueing

22/25

drive.google.com/drive/u/2/fold…

Reading Recovery has not recommended any changes to the program in light of current reading research. In fact, changes cannot be made to the program without the approval of the trustees of the Marie Clay Literacy Trust.

23/25

@DianeRavitch said "all reading teachers should know how to teach phonics, and all reading teachers should understand when it is appropriate to teach phonics. All reading teachers should prioritize the joy of reading and the love of literature."

24/

dianeravitch.net/2021/02/09/pau…

Yet, many teachers in KY must teach a Balanced Literacy curriculum with fidelity and Reading Recovery teachers are not allowed to modify the program.

With the Read to Succeed bill, teachers will have more tools in their toolkit. We must ensure that they can use them.

25/25