Reading Recovery in the News - January-March 2007

JANUARY, 2007

Program helps poorest first-grade readers
Community Press - Florence, KY
By Danny Cross
January 28, 2007

Marcie Patrick began this school year with four students in her Reading Recovery program, a professional development system dedicated to helping the lowest 20 percent of a first-grade reading class catch up to class reading standards.

Her current students - two of which have completely caught up to class standards and two who have made considerable progress - will rejoin their normal classes and she'll take on four new students, Patrick said.

The program, which William Bick Primary instituted last year, is an intensive 20-week course for first graders which offers each student one-on-one teaching for 30 minutes a day, five days a week. Patrick said the students who begin falling behind during first grade will only fall further behind without help.

"I think that this is just one more way that our school board is really trying to hit those students that are struggling," said Patrick. "We earned an excellent school rating last year and I think it's all of these endeavors that help."

PROFILE: 8 questions with Donna McGrady
thepaper24-7.com – Montgomery County, IN
By Denise Hinckley
January 27, 2007

Each day The Paper of Montgomery County profiles a person from our community...

A retired teacher and assistant superintendent, Donna McGrady stays busy on the Waynetown Town Council, she is the president of the board for both the Montgomery County Historical Society and the crisis shelter in Crawfordsville.

If you could have dinner with any three people (living or dead), who would they be and why?

….Marie Clay is a person I would like to meet. She started the 'Reading Recovery' program that we use in this country.

FEBRUARY 2007

Pupil’s Elective Classes at Risk
The Express Times - Easton, PA
By Kurt Bresswein
February 13, 2007

Bethlehem Area School District high school students who fall behind in reading may have to give up elective courses for a new remediation program proposed Monday….
Other reading remediation courses called Reading Recovery for first-graders and Read 180 for grades three and four and the middle schools have made notable progress in improving literacy, according to literacy coordinator Kathy Bast and K-5 Literacy Coordinator Joanne LoFaso.

Test looms over BASD
Allentown Morning Call - Allentown, PA
By Steve Esack
February 13, 2007

In other reading matters, literacy coordinator Joanne LoFaso said a first-grade reading refresher course, Reading Recovery, has had great results. She had stats too.
After the meeting, Villani said students come to the district without basic reading skills. Reading starts at home, he said.
''The parents are either plopping them down in front of the television or the parents work and cannot find the time,'' Villani said. ''It all comes down to how much instruction time they have at home with reading.

The quintessential teacher
Turlock Journal – Turlock, CA
By DENNIS WYATT
Wednesday, February 14, 2007

Turlock paid tribute Saturday to Sandra Tovar Medeiros. Family, friends, and fellow educators gathered for the symbolic laying by the Masons of the cornerstone for Sandra Tovar Medeiros Elementary School.
Medeiros patiently devoted 15 years of her life at Wakefield Elementary laying the foundation necessary for hundreds of young minds to blossom. Medeiros was a kindergarten teacher and a Reading Recovery teacher.
Medeiros knew well why reading was essential and the foundation to learning and success in life. The daughter of field workers, Medeiros could not read English and spoke very little when she started school. Somewhere along the way she came across a teacher at an early age who helped her unlock that great mystery of reading. And in doing so, the floodgates were opened.

MARCH 2007

MV board commends students
Mount Vernon News - Mount Vernon, OH
By Pamela Schehl
March 6, 2007

MOUNT VERNON — Awards and commendations led off Monday’s meeting of the Mount Vernon Board of Education. The board first commended Columbia Elementary students Heather Tharp and Erica Wilcox for placing in the national Reading Recovery art contest. Heather was a regional winner, Erica one of 12 national winners. Her artwork is featured on note cards distributed by the national organization.

An awesome twosome: First-grader hones reading skills with help of principal 
Amherst Bulletin - Amherst, MA
By Bob Dunn
March 9, 2007

It's not every first-grader who asks to spend time in the principal's office. But that's what 6-year-old Alex Martinez did when he sent a note to Crocker Farm Principal Paul Wiley.

The note read, "Dear Mr. Wiley, can I read with you some day?" It listed two boxes labeled "yes" and "no."
Wiley checked "yes."

Alex is part of Crocker Farm's Reading Recovery program, which identifies students who may be at risk for falling behind classmates in their reading abilities.

"Some children don't have special needs, they just need special instruction," said Janine Kelly, who teaches Reading Recovery at Crocker Farm and works with Alex for 30 minutes each school day.

Reading Recovery Begins at RE-1 Elementary Schools 
Journal-Advocate - Sterling, CO
By Carol Barrett
March 10, 2007

STERLING — Being a capable reader makes school better for a child in so many ways. It raises self-esteem, opens doors to learning other subjects, and when reading comes easily, it can be lots of fun, too.

To this end, the RE-1 Valley School District is implementing Reading Recovery this year at Stevens and Caliche elementary schools. The Reading Recovery program is designed to significantly reduce the number of children who have reading difficulties in first grade.

All the RE-1 first-grade pupils in Sterling attend Stevens School this year, where three specially-trained teachers work with the children who are having the most difficulty learning to read. Caliche School has one Reading Recovery teacher for the first-graders who need the extra help.

Ron Marostica, assistant superintendent at RE-1, became familiar with the program when he worked at schools in other states and was impressed with the results. The idea, he said, is to help children who are having reading difficulties “recover,” before they become defeated. The children recommended for Reading Recovery are the lowest readers in the first grade who don’t qualify for the Title I Reading or Special Education programs.