Thank goodness for well-respected science teacher-blogger, Greg Ashman, who has immediately added to the debate with another of his many measured posts:
https://gregashman.wordpress.com/2018/1 ... -the-pack/Another flawed Reading Recovery study to add to the pack
Do read Greg's post in full - it is not long. He concludes:
In short, this new study demonstrates nothing much, even if we are inclined to believe that Reading Recovery has some effect.
The reason it is necessary to critique studies of this kind is that there are so many of them. As they pile up, commentators make statements to the effect that no other reading intervention has generated such a wealth of positive evidence and the individual studies get buried behind Hattie- or Education Endowment Foundation-style ‘effect sizes’ that teachers and school leaders take as evidence of effectiveness.
But it is not evidence. It is a house of cards.