Are Reading Recovery personnel masters at fudging the RR methodology and, it has to be said, the actual results that can be obtained from use of the Reading Recovery programme? See here:
https://www.edreform.com/edspresso-shot ... y-salvato/
I have checked with Bob Sweet to ensure that this piece by Nancy Salvato is accurate and he has confirmed that it is.“R” STANDS FOR READING RAT RACE (NANCY SALVATO)
October 27, 2006
In the Summer of 2001 Dame Marie Clay, creator of the New Zealand based Reading Recovery program, and her entourage came to the Rayburn House Office Building in Washington, DC, to speak with House Education Committee Staffer Bob Sweet. Her purpose was to ascertain whether Reading Recovery would be eligible for Reading First funding once the bill was passed. Bob explained to Ms. Clay that explicit, systematic phonics instruction had to be included in any program eligible for RF funding because it was one of the necessary key components of reading instruction that had been established through decades of carefully conducted quantitative research. These findings had been validated in the Report of the National Reading Panel in 2000 and were now going to become an essential part of the Reading First Law. He pleaded with Ms. Clay to use her extensive network of teacher training programs all over the US to help in the implementation of the RF program. He encouraged her to provide the leadership within the RR family to make the modifications necessary, and thus make RR eligible for RF funding consideration.
With a stare as cold as ice, Marie Clay replied that RR would not be making any changes to their program; however, Mr. Sweet could be certain a new description of its components would be written in such a way as to bring it into compliance with the RF law. Momentarily dumbfounded, he maintained that Reading Recovery could not be eligible for RF funding without modification, and his initial estimation then still stands today.
Further, it was noted in England in 2006 when Sir Jim Rose's recommendation for systematic phonics was accepted by the, then, government - and the Searchlights multi-cueing reading strategies (akin to the multi-cueing word-guessing strategies of Reading Recovery) was replaced by the Simple View of Reading model, that teachers were being given contradictory guidance because the government was still funding and promoting Reading Recovery through its 'Every Child a Reader' initiative.
Which guidance were teachers expected to follow? The Systematic Synthetic Phonics teaching principles with no multi-cueing reading strategies or the mixed methods, multi-cueing reading strategies approach of Reading Recovery? I took this up with Ed Balls, Secretary of Education at that time, and he insisted that promoting RR was valid because 'it works'.
But how well does 'it work' and does 'it work' for every child? These are the fundamental questions that are raised about RR over and again not only by teachers but also by researchers as a consequence of their close scrutiny of reports on Reading Recovery's results casting doubts.
In England's context, I have asked a 'National Leader' for Reading Recovery where I can find the literature to describe the changes to Reading Recovery which are claimed and implied by RR personnel in England in light of Sir Jim Rose's recommendations being adopted by the government. I got simply nowhere with my inquiry.