Reading Recovery

This intervention is targeted at the Year 1 level to ensure that the students are not left to practise their confusions, and to enable them to catch up when the learning gap is comparatively narrow.

Students participating in Reading Recovery attend daily lessons on a one to one basis for half an hour, with a trained Reading Recovery teacher. 

The Reading Recovery teachers at St Albans East are Mrs Carolyn Bowen and Ms Dianne Fielding.

Individual instruction allows the teacher to give the student the prompts and strategies needed for that child at that point in time. During the daily half hour lesson, there is a lot of praise and just the right amount of support for the child to successfully learn, use, and revise strategies, in order to become a successful reader and writer.

Most students remain on the program for 10-20 weeks according to individual needs.

Students who attend Reading Recovery are initially selected based on the results from the Observation Survey, and in consultation with the Classroom Teachers and Literacy Coach. Usually the first intake of students is taken from the eldest Year One children who are at risk. As each child finishes Reading Recovery, the student who is most at risk at the time usually fills the vacant position.

Before the students begin Reading Recovery they spend 10 lessons informally working with the Reading Recovery teacher. This time is essential to establish a safe, caring environment for the student.

The informal lessons are called Roaming The Known. Students practise what they already know before being introduced to new challenges. Homework is not usually given during this time.

 

Activities during Roaming may include playing games and making books.

 

The series of lessons are designed to meet the daily needs of each student but a ‘typical’ Reading Recovery lesson would include:

 

·         Reading 2 or more familiar books.

 

The starting place for each student is what he/she can already do. The student has his/her own box of carefully chosen books. These books become familiar and give the student the chance to be phrased and fluent (sound like a good reader). When books are reread, the meaning is already there, and the student can concentrate on making new discoveries relating to the look and structure of the writing.

 

·        Re-reading the new book introduced yesterday.

As the child is reading this book the teacher quickly takes a running record. She records what strategies the child is using when he / she is stuck. The teacher will decide what the child will need to work on that day and in future days.

 

·         Working with letter identification / Breaking words into parts.

Within the lesson is a small but important part of the lesson when the student uses magnetic letters to learn about letters, and making and breaking words.

It is important for the student to recognise letters quickly. This student is matching upper and lower case letters.

 

·       Writing a story. (With support.)

 

 

Writing is a very important part of the lesson. This is where the student learns the links between spoken and written language. Students use and expand their knowledge of phonemic awareness (sounds within words). He/she learns that letter order is important when reading and spelling.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

· Hearing and recording sounds. (When writing.)

Students learn to hear and represent sounds within words. This student is using sound boxes to hear the parts of the word and select appropriate letters to represent the sounds.

 

· Reconstructing the cut-up story.

The written story is quickly copied to a sentence strip that can be cut into words and parts of words. The student re-assembles the story. He/she is required to search, locate, check, self-correct, reread and predict, all skills that are needed when reading.

 

· Listening to a new book introduction.

A book introduction familiarises the child with the meaning (e.g. daisy, waves), challenging words (e.g. triceratops, beautiful) and unfamiliar structure. (e.g. Where oh where is teddy bear?)

 

· Attempting to read the new book.

The lesson always finishes with the child reading the new book. New books provide the opportunity to learn new vocabulary and try out known and new strategies.

It is important that the student attends Reading Recovery each day. Missing lessons will result in slower progress, so unless the child is ill, he/she should attend school every day.

HOMEWORK

Homework is a requirement of all students taking part in Reading Recovery. It should only take a few minutes and is not intended to be a burden.

 

Each day the child will bring home a book to read and a cut-up story (written by the student that day) to glue into a small scrapbook.

 

The books that go home will be familiar to the child and should be quite easy to read. The purpose of this book is to promote confidence, as he/she is able to read this book to anyone who will listen. More challenging books will be read at school.

 

USEFUL PROMPTS

WHEN HEARING READING:

If the child added or deleted words-

Did you run out of words?

Did you have too many words?

Read it with your finger. Did it match?

Point to each word.

Can you find the tricky word?

If the child is stuck on an unknown word-

Look at the picture.

Read it again and think about the story.

Look at the first letter(s).

Read that again and start the word. (Rereading the previous words and saying the first letter of the unknown word may be enough of a prompt to guess the word)

Try __________. Would that make sense?

Try __________. Would that sound right?

Do you think it looks like _________?

Would X start like that?

Do you think it looks like ‘went’?

Do you know a word that ends / begins with those letters?

Do you know a word that looks like that?

Use your eyes and think about it.

Look for something that would help you.

What can you see that might help?

Do you know a word that looks like that?

If the child misreads a word and stops-

What’s wrong?

Why did you stop?

Would __________ fit there?

Would _____________ make sense?

Do you think it looks like ________?

What could you try?

Check the picture.

Where is the hard bit?

What did you notice?

Run a finger under it while you say it slowly.

After an error that the child does not notice-

It could be __________, but look at ________. (1st letter etc)

Check it. Does it look right and sound right to you?

You almost got that. See if you can find what is wrong.

Try that again.

Something wasn’t quite right.

What’s wrong with this? (Repeat what child said)

You said _________. Does that make sense?

To reinforce the recognition of words-

Can you find _______? (A known or a new word)

Can you find the same word on this / a previous page?

To reinforce the child’s self-correction behaviour-

I liked the way you worked that out.

How did you know to change ________?

You made a mistake. Can you find it?

You’re nearly right. Try that again.

To sound like good reading

Are you listening to yourself?

Did it sound good?

Let’s put ‘here comes’ together.

Can you read this quickly?

Put all the words together so that it sounds like talking.

How would you say that?

Make it sound like a favourite book.

Read it all smoothly.

Make your voice go down at the end of the sentence.

Change your voice when you see these marks on the page. (! ? “ “)

Can you talk like Baby Bear?

USEFUL PROMPTS

WHEN UNJUMBLING THE SENTENCE

If stuck- Read the story to me. (A copy will be written by the teacher somewhere in the scrapbook.)

If the child can’t remember the sentence at all say- It’s about ______. And / or It begins ________________.

Fantastic, but there are 2 words in the wrong place. Check it again.

Two words began with the same letter. How did you know which one to put there?

Where is the full-stop?

Where is the capital letter?

How many words do you have?

How many letters are in the longest word? (Many children confuse letters and words.)

Can you see any words that begin / end the same?

Do you have any words that are the same?

Did you have any of these words in other stories?

Can you see a small word inside this word? E.g. going

 

Please note:

Do not overwhelm a child with prompts. They are only included as some parents ask how they can help at home. Too many prompts get in the way of maintaining meaning.

 

Click here for some fun letter and word activities.