Testimony

SENATE HEALTH, EDUCATION, LABOR AND PENSIONS (HELP) COMMITTEE
June 13, 2002
10:00 am
“Implementing Reading First and Reading Programs and Strategies”
Testimony by
Trisha Rhodes, Hancock County Consortium, Bar Harbor, Maine

Chairman Kennedy and members of the committee, thank you for this opportunity to speak from both personal and professional experience to what works for children learning to read. My career as an educator began as a speech and language teacher. Later I became certified as a classroom teacher and a literacy specialist. Then I taught 7th-8th grade literature and language arts for three years. It was these experiences that led me to pursue training as a Reading Recovery teacher. Even with my background in language development and my training as a literacy specialist, I was frustrated with my inability to reach my struggling readers and bring them up to grade level. I knew they were being left behind. This led me to search for information about teaching children how to read in the early stages of learning. When I read about Reading Recovery I was excited and impressed because Dr. Clay shared my beliefs that early intervention is crucial to reach children before they fail, and she had created a program of professional development based on scientific research.
I asked my district to train me as a Reading Recovery teacher, and that training significantly added to my ability to teach emergent readers. My teaching was so successful that the decision was made to train Reading Recovery teachers in most of the schools in my district. Due to the high quality of ongoing training in Reading Recovery, all of the Reading Recovery teachers in my district have emerged as leaders in their schools. They have formed teams with classroom teachers and special educators to create more effective reading programs and to establish standards and assessments in their individual schools and for our district as a whole. The result has been positive systemic change with Reading Recovery working with a variety of classroom approaches. An image to consider is that of a tricycle. The largest of the three wheels is classroom instruction and the two smaller wheels are short-term early intervention such as Reading Recovery and long-term continuing support such as special education. This image is helpful because it both illustrates the importance of classroom instruction and the importance of support services for low-achieving students in order for the educational process to work. 
I have been teaching for 18 years and 12 of those years have been spent teaching the lowest performing first grade children how to read and write. I teach children every day, and the growth I see, not only in their ability to read and write, but in feelings of self esteem, is impressive. I have experienced first hand the two positive outcomes of Reading Recovery. These are: 1) the ability for children who are the lowest-achieving at the beginning of first grade to accelerate into the average performance range of their classmates, and 2) the early identification of the few children who will need long term support through special services to ensure that no child is left behind. 
About Reading Recovery: Reading Recovery has served more than one million children since implementation in the United States in 1984. Reading Recovery is:
A short-term (12 to 20 weeks) early intervention that helps lowest-achieving first grade children develop effective strategies for reading and writing at grade level. 
Intensive, daily one-to-one instruction for thirty (30) minutes that supplements the child’s classroom learning.
An integral component of a comprehensive literacy program that is compatible with all classroom teaching approaches. 
A year-long training course and on-going training for every year that the teacher teaches children Reading Recovery.
Accountable with program evaluation that counts every child, monitors results, and makes changes based on results.
Available in Spanish, French, and under development in other languages around the world.
Reading Recovery and the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB): Reading Recovery meets the standards set by the No Child Left Behind Act. Reading Recovery includes the essential components of reading instruction, meets the definition of scientifically-based research, and uses rigorous assessments. Reading Recovery is closing the gap for at-risk readers. It explicitly incorporates the essential components of reading instruction into every lesson, including comprehension, fluency, vocabulary development, phonemic awareness, and phonics (teaching letters, sounds, and word parts and how to use them in figuring out a word). 
Reading Recovery has a strong scientific research base. The structure and design of Reading Recovery are consistent with a large body of substantial research on reading and writing behaviors that began in the 1960s and continues today. Research on Reading Recovery uses systematic, empirical methods to collect data annually on all children receiving service. Reading Recovery is reported in numerous peer-reviewed research articles or research reviews that offer support for various aspects of Reading Recovery.
Accountability: Reading Recovery is highly accountable. Every child’s progress is measured using standard, valid, and reliable tests of letters, words, sounds, and reading books. The continued progress of children after Reading Recovery has been externally validated in many states, school districts, and schools around the nation. In Maine, for example, a recent longitudinal study at the University of Maine found that 84% of Reading Recovery children who successfully completed their series of lessons met the state standards in reading in fourth grade. These results for the lowest achieving children who received 30 to 50 hours of one-to-one instruction in the first grade are very impressive.
Cost Effectiveness: The immediate impact of Reading Recovery can be felt in the school system in the form of reduced grade retentions and referrals to special education or other long-term academic support services. Of the 86,000 children who successfully completed Reading Recovery in the United States in 2000-2001, only 137 were placed in special education for reading or writing instruction at the end of grade one. In addition, only 194 of these 86,000 children were retained in first grade because of reading difficulties. 
Resources: Two-thirds of schools with Reading Recovery report using federal funds to assist with the cost of implementation. Reading First funds are important, but they are not the only answer to every child’s reading difficulties. All parts of the NCLB Act must receive adequate funding for every eligible child to be served, and states and local educational agencies must be able to choose programs like Reading Recovery to meet their students’ learning needs. 
In closing, I want to thank you for everything you have done and will continue to do for children who need the most help learning to read and write. More eloquent, however, are the thanks of parents and children whose lives were changed by Reading Recovery. I will close with their words, because they say it all: 
Parent: I just wanted to say thank you. Jason has just finished 1st grade and I am happy to say that he is reading on grade level. He got on the school’s honor roll during the third nine weeks. Then he went onto the principal’s high honor role during the third nine weeks. He just got his end of year report and was reading on a level 18. He still reads every night and reminds me if we forget. His love for reading is unbelievable. Reading Recovery builds more than just the ability to read. It builds the child’s belief in themselves. I have become a huge advocate in my community. I am doing everything I can to spot light this program so that all parents are aware that it is out there.
From a 15-year old former Reading Recovery Student: I still remember how I felt in first grade when many of my friends were reading and I just couldn’t figure it out. I began to feel embarrassed and discouraged about school. I was then fortunate enough to be identified for Reading Recovery help. . .Right away I began to feel success and feel like a reader. . .I can’t imagine what school might have been like without this invaluable support.
I would be happy to answer any questions.