Intervention for Dyslexia - The British Dyslexia Association

Reader guidance (DCSF, 2008). Evaluations of some of these other interventions are
included in Chapter 3 of this report.
5.2 Evaluations of Reading Recovery in the rest of the
world
5.2.1 Large-scale international evaluations and reviews
Reading Recovery programmes have been evaluated according to various metrics, the
most commonly adopted being the number of pupils who are ‘successfully discontinued’
from the programme – i.e. those who reached the criterion level of improvement.
Another metric less commonly employed is the extent to which Reading Recovery pupils
are able to keep pace in literacy development with other pupils after the programme has
finished. A considerable number of evaluations of Reading Recovery have been carried
out in the last 25 years, but these have often been small-scale, not independent, and
rarely reported first-hand in peer-reviewed journals. However, literature searches
uncovered several larger-scale evaluations carried out in New Zealand, the US and
Australia, which show that the percentage of Reading Recovery pupils who have
completed a full programme who are successfully discontinued is about 70%–80%,
except for New Zealand and the State of Victoria in Australia, where the percentage is
somewhat higher: 84%–90% (Anand & Bennie, 2004, 2005; Cosgrave, Bennie &
Kerslake, 2002; Gomez-Bellenge, Rodgers and Schulzt, 2005; Kerslake, 1999, 2000,
2001; Lyons, 2003; Lyons & Beaver, 1995; McDowall, Boyd and Hodgen, 2005;
Shanahan & Barr; 1995). Between 8% and 20% are referred for additional services.
Note that ‘success’ in this context does not necessarily mean that the child will be
reading within the normal range nationally, only that the Reading Recovery teacher has
judged the child’s book reading ability to be within the average range of the class the
child belongs to.
Reviews of Reading Recovery evaluations in the early and mid-1990s were mostly
positive, concluding that, although costly, Reading Recovery generally resulted in
significant gains in reading (e.g. D’Agostino & Murphy, 2004), although it was noted that
it was less effective in maintaining those gains and it would be an unwise strategy to
shift all resources for remediation into Reading Recovery because some students would
be likely to require additional or continuing support (Wasik & Slavin, 1993; Shanahan &
Barr, 1995). Reviews also commented that the effectiveness of Reading Recovery would
be likely to be increased if it incorporated techniques that had been shown in research
to promote early reading skills, such as explicit instruction in phonics (see also Section
5.1.5). During the 1990s, however, increasing concerns began to emerge in the US and
elsewhere in the world regarding Reading Recovery (see Hiebert, 1994; Shanahan &
Barr, 1995; Grossen, Coulter & Ruggles, 1997; Elbaum, Vaughn, Hughes & Moody,
2000). Many of the issues concerning evaluation of the effectiveness of Reading
Recovery have been summarised and discussed by Reynolds and Wheldall (2007), who
concluded:
“RR has established a reputation as being a remarkably successful intervention …
research, however, indicates that it has not delivered all that it promised to deliver:
long-term change for students and a significant reduction in demand for special
education services in later years. Evidence indicates that RR is beneficial for those
students who are discontinued but that it is less beneficial for students who have
incomplete programmes, are withdrawn, or are referred to special education. In fact, the
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