"New research shows controversial Reading Recovery program eventually had a negative impact on children
Initial gains from first-grade intervention didn’t last and kids performed worse in third and fourth grade. " (Picture and copied headline from AMP Reports to get your attention!)
I’m sad but not surprised that the Reading Recovery contract has been renewed until January 2024.
After the early releases about the Common Practice Model (CPM) in literacy in March, the Ministry of Education (MoE) had clearly signalled that it was NOT going to clearly signal a preference for explicit, systematic and cumulative literacy instructional: there were too many words talking about being student-led and co-constructing the learning environment before any reference to a more structured approach.
For clarity, I do not mean ignoring a students’ particular needs when I quibble about being student-led: I am all for responsive education, especially Response To Intervention (RTI) or a Multi Tiered Support System. What I prefer, however, is it being based on a logical response to teaching the skills that students need. The current NZ Curriculum is NOT explicit enough about progressions, especially in early or foundational literacy skills.
Structured approaches were referenced in the CPM media releases rather than the term Structured Literacy. Again, I am not surprised about this, partly because the MoE, Reading Recovery Teachers and others aligned with Balanced Literacy approaches are humans: no one likes to be told in a blunt way that they are doing something wrong - Mary Poppins is correct that a little dose of sugar helps the medicine go down.
My reference point for this is the recent blog by the RR spokesperson Rebecca Jesson: she talks about not liking a ‘binary or oppositional approach’, instead opting for the phrase AND + AND.
It’s like she’s channeling the complaints of some well-meaning but offended RR teachers who react to the evidence that SL is more effective than Balanced Literacy for a larger majority of children: ‘We do know how to teach reading. We’ve taught hundreds of students to read! Some kids just take longer…’
[As an aside, I find it quite clever of the RR marketing team that they have hooked onto a phrase - AND + AND - that has been used often by Science of Reading advocates, in particular a leading NZ Structured Literacy advocate and provider in media appearances in the past two years.]
To be clear, SL advocates use AND + AND to mean both sides of The Reading Rope or both sides of The Simple View of Reading (Decoding x Language Comprehension = Reading Comprehension) i.e SL is not ‘just about phonics’!
Whereas the MoE and RR are using AND + AND to imply that ‘Balanced Literacy’ approaches are OK with a few additions added in the 'Refresh', namely:
analytic phonics or phonics mini lessons ‘as needed’ so as not to ‘waste too much time on being explicit’;
using Meaning, Syntax and Visual cues to ‘read’ text, including guessing a word based on context rather than using phonics skills first;
and continuing with ‘levelling’ students through running records and book publishers ‘levels’
AND adding in some extra phonics lessons and books for the junior classes
AND adding in a few extra lessons for a few students
AND adding in 5-year-olds to their classroom support role rather than just working with 6-year-old or Year 2 students.
…rather than a Structured Literacy approach, namely:
a detailed scope and sequence for systematic, synthetic phonics (SSP), word study and spelling throughout primary instruction for ALL students at ALL year levels, AND
using decodable AND authentic texts for reading instruction (and the building of general and specific subject knowledge), AND
teaching reading, spelling, handwriting and writing in conjunction with one another more explicitly, AND
monitoring progress against what has been taught in the scope and sequence, AND
that has been taught in a diagnostic, systematic and cumulative manner, from the easiest concepts to the most complex concepts of the language being studied.
One thing mentioned in the MoE/RR media statements I am in agreement with is, however, the importance of teaching metacognition and self-monitoring strategies. By this, I do not mean that the student looks at an unknown word and is told to “get your mouth ready with the first sound, look at the picture and have a guess for ‘what would make sense’?”
Making sense of what we read is paramount, but teaching RR/Marie Clay ‘3-cueing strategies’ to do this is not the most effective way to teach reading - they have been proven in studies to slow down or hinder a student’s pathway into fluent reading and spelling. It’s not that they don’t work ‘some of the time’; it's that this method is less effective than other methods and our students do not have time to waste! (Analogy: If you asked me where the toilet was and I told you to go out round the back, up the path and through the door on the left, you’d be most annoyed when you realised you could have just taken the first door on the right! We need to teach our students explicitly, not ‘lead them up the garden path’ to a wilderness of confusion.)
Regarding metacognition, yes a student does need some book introductions or ‘hooks’ for engagement - don’t we all like a teaser or brief summary of what we are about to do (and it is important to explicitly point out connections to prior learning) - and yes, when they read something they have to ask themselves after decoding sound-spellings, ‘Does that sound right?’ Particularly with complex vowels (or vowel teams), students need to be taught to flex sounds or practise Set for Variability, to determine the correct pronunciation of unfamiliar words. Eg Is it…I read for pleasure (now) or I read for pleasure (when I was a child)?
But for RR to imply that their self-monitoring ‘3-cueing’ methods are useful for beginner readers is not keeping up with more recent revelations about how all brains learn to read.
The parent of a dyslexic child, or another struggling reader, needs assurance that teachers are using the best, most up-to-date and effective methods for teaching their child. Actually, this is what ALL parents want for ALL their children.
For RR to continue to promote a ‘piecemeal’ or ‘balanced’ approach, rather than a more structured approach, under the guise of doing what is best for students as individuals, is doing serious damage to children by denying them the right to a faster and more proven pathway for ALL learners.
Having teachers in the classroom know how to teach systematic, synthetic phonics with fidelity to its scope and sequence AND how to engage students in lots of practice reading, writing and discussing lots of different types of texts AND doing more of the same for kids who need extra practice in class AND doing more of the same, but more intensively, for kids who are struggling to keep up with their peers, IS on the right pathway.
BUT we do not need Reading Recovery (a private contractor) and its expensive price tag and its adherence to out-dated literacy teaching methods. Many RR teachers ARE experienced and skilled teachers and many are already using more structured literacy approaches with their students. We do not need them contracted to RR, except that is the only way some schools can get funding for extra literacy teachers in their schools. Not fair!
In summary, this is my suggested AND + AND approach that is needed for our students:
Well-informed teachers AND
Well-informed school leaders AND
Easily accessible high-quality literacy materials AND
Ongoing, on-the-job literacy coaching AND
Extra teachers and teacher-aides to support extra in-class lessons AND
Extra specialist teachers to provide 1:1 support for our most struggling learners AND
Quality control processes for public scrutiny (by independent bodies) as to whether best practices are continuing to be implemented in our schools AND
A cycle of review to consider new research and evidence-based approaches and its implication for school or classroom practices.
Much of this is outlined in the ‘refreshed’ RR model BUT it does not need to be aligned with RR and its out-dated teaching practices.
Here’s my ‘spoonful of sugar’: Let’s keep the dedicated, well-meaning RR teachers, ‘refresh’ their background knowledge and training in alignment with more recent evidence-based research, get them to pass an internationally recognised endorsement for reading specialisation (CERI or similar) to get paid a bonus or management unit, and get stuck into delivering core classroom lessons and intervention lessons (RTI) based on Structured Literacy approaches BUT make access to the funding for extra specialist literacy coaches, teachers and tutors available to ALL schools.
Let’s not funnel loads of money into Y1 and Y2 through RR and Early Literacy Support and leave nothing else in the ‘pot of funding’ to help our struggling older learners. Per child, RR is criticised for being a very expensive intervention. If not for any other reason, being shrewd with our education spending would be a wiser longer-term investment for our public monies.
If following a Structured Literacy (research AND evidence-based) approach is unpalatable to the MoE (a ‘pill too hard to swallow’), I think parents of struggling readers, armed with a diagnostic summary of their students’ needs, should then be able to seek a tax-rebate from the state for the cost of their students’ literacy tutoring outside of school, if their school is unable - or worse unwilling - to meet their students’ needs.
I know NZ often prides itself on being a little bit quirky, a tiny country hitting the headlines for ‘outside the box thinking’ but claiming that the refreshed RR approach is the AND + AND way of Aotearoa, as stated in the RR blog, is ‘cutting off our nose to spite our face’.
Flying in the face of evidence does not bode well for our Kiwi kids’ literate futures.
References:
Making the Grade: Ministry of Education releases literacy and maths common practice model (March 2023) https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/literacy-and-maths-common-practice-model-released-by-ministry-of-education/2NYHEH5YEZCEZCGNBVR2QHSR4I/
Common Practice Model Summaries (March 2023) https://www.education.govt.nz/our-work/changes-in-education/curriculum-and-assessment-changes/common-practice-model/#summaries
The Reading Recovery Refresh: Unpacking the And + And Approach By Rebecca Jesson (April 2023) https://www.learningcircle.co.nz/blog/reading-recovery-refresh-unpacking-and-and-approach
The theory underpinning Reading Recovery https://www.readingrecovery.ac.nz/theory/the-theory-underpinning-reading-recovery
Educations Counts: Annual Monitoring of Reading Recovery (2021) https://www.educationcounts.govt.nz/statistics/reading-recovery#:~:text=In%202021%20Reading%20Recovery%20was,lost%20to%20the%20vaccine%20mandate.
Ministry of Education: Vote Education spend on Reading Recovery- Official Information Act Request response (Nov 2018) https://www.education.govt.nz/assets/Uploads/R-Reading-Recovery-1163546.pdf
Shanahan Blogpost: Me and Reading Recovery (May 2022) https://www.readingrockets.org/blogs/shanahan-literacy/me-and-reading-recovery
A popular program for teaching kids to read just took another hit to its credibility (May 2022) https://www.npr.org/2022/05/05/1096672803/reading-recovery-research-schools#:~:text=Critics%20of%20Reading%20Recovery%20have,in%20how%20to%20decode%20words.
Concerns Raised Over Reading Recovery’s Long-Term Effects (May 2022)
What is the Science of Reading (January 2021) https://journal.imse.com/what-is-the-science-of-reading/
The alternative to a ‘redressesed’ status quo…. ‘Pedagogy over Programmes’ (March 2020) https://www.learningmatters.co.nz/blog/post/50983/The-alternative-to-a-redressesed-status-quo-Pedagogy-over-Programmes/
'It was damaging': the campaign to rid schools of Reading Recovery (May 2019)
Reading Recovery: NSW government ditches 30-year-old, $55m a year program (Sept 2016)
