Dear Ms.

McLaren, 
 
I am responding to chapter 3 of your article Between the Lines.  My aim in responding is not to
try to convince you to agree with me, but rather to ask you to consider some misconceptions
about the Reading Recovery program.
 
I am a teacher in Kentucky.  I received both my Bachelor's degree in Elementary Education
(1986) and my Master's degree in Elementary Education (1996) in Kentucky. I was not taught
how to teach reading until I spent a year earning 6 hours of college credit while training as a
Reading Recovery (RR) teacher in 2013.  I have seen the pendulum swing from whole language
to balanced literacy to phonics-based instruction.  If school districts employ good teachers and
have confidence in the training they have received, we are only hurting students when
lawmakers dictate what works best in the classroom.  Sadly, when a student comes from
kindergarten to first grade, it is noticeable whether or not they have been under a
conscientious and well-trained teacher.   
  
I will agree that I, too, was leery about the term Science of Reading being included in the
wording of the 2022-2024 RTA grant application.  I think the term means different things to
different people, but I thought it was used in a way that was in opposition to the Reading
Recovery program, and I didn't agree with that.   
 
Your article refers to other states that are taking action by "adjusting their reading curriculum
to a more phonics-heavy approach."  This may be a necessary adjustment for the classrooms
across the state, but intervention is individualized instruction and addresses the gaps students
have in their learning that have caused them to be unsuccessful in the classroom setting. 
Reading Recovery is a short-term (12-20 weeks) Tier 3 intervention that is often a child's last
chance to make progress before being referred for special education. Since we are working with
THE LOWEST performing students in first grade, these students will require ongoing support as
they move through the grades.  The proponents of Reading Recovery admit that the program is
not able to have results that are 100% effective, especially since the program is designed to be
short-term.  I am not an expert in dealing with all the variations of dyslexia or visual processing
disorders, but RR often sheds light on those specific needs by using techniques recommended
by Orton-Gillingham and using the 3 pathways of learning to incorporate all the senses.  At the
conclusion of their program, RR students are often recommended for alternate interventions
that address those needs more directly. 
 
One reason I believe in Reading Recovery is that the program tailors each lesson to the specific
needs of the student.  The article describes RR as "a method of reading instruction that does
not typically prioritize decoding (sounding out a word)."  Time and space do not allow for an
entire scope and sequence of phonics instruction to be addressed in the 12-20 week
intervention, but I will give you several examples of how phonics and phonemic awareness are
addressed across an entire RR lesson in order to completely disprove that statement.     
 
In my RR lessons, phonics and phonemic awareness are addressed in familiar reading when a
student is asked to frame a letter they are learning, find the first letter/part of a word, read an
isolated word quickly, clap a word and show the parts, find a word that looks like another word
you know, get your mouth ready for that first sound.  Phonics and phonemic awareness make
another appearance in the running record/assessment portion of the lesson when teaching
points are made as to How does that word start? Did you get it right? How do you know?  What
doesn't look right here?  Do you know a word that looks like that?   The letter work and word
work portion of the lesson obviously focuses on phonics and phonemic awareness when a child
is asked to say the names of letters/digraphs or blends fast, sort letters in order to promote fast
and fluent recognition, trace a letter that is not yet known.  The word work portion helps
students understand how words work by helping them use word analogies and break words
into parts using digraphs, blends, and vowel teams in order to teach efficient decoding (or
"sounding out", as it is commonly referred to).  As I transition into the writing portion of the
lesson, my students are instructed in the use of Elkonin boxes to phonetically build words,
encouraged to make use of word analogies to discover how spelling patterns are reflected
across words, asked to clap a word and write it in parts, use their letter/sound knowledge to
build a consonant framework for words and later to include vowels/vowel teams, digraphs, and
blends when developmentally appropriate. The child-generated story becomes a cut-up
sentence where the student reassembles the story word by word using the first letter/part of a
word. I can further address specific phonics/phonemic awareness needs of the student by
cutting the sentence into phrases, cutting words into onsets and rimes, cutting off prefixes and
suffixes, etc. depending on what is developmentally appropriate for the student. The teaching
of phonics and phonemic awareness continues in the New Book portion of the RR lesson as I
help the child discover the visual encounters they will be interacting with in the first reading of
the book, such as clapping the word playground and park to see which one is appearing in the
story, slow checking across a word to notice an ending, finding a word you know, finding a word
that starts like /f/, for example.  I continue to develop my understanding of what students need
to be successful so that I can make specific adjustments to my lesson as needed.  One of those
things I have to be intentional about teaching is that my students make the transfer of
knowledge learned in a RR lesson to the classroom setting.   
 
When you consider the teaching going on that is described in the above paragraph, I am
amazed that someone could actually think the program was "harmful to students' reading
abilities" or that "kids may have been better off if they had not gotten Reading Recovery, at
all."   I didn't even touch on the comprehension, fluency, and vocabulary that is taught in a RR
lesson, and all of this happens in a 30-minute lesson every day with a highly trained reading
specialist.   I have countless parent, teacher, and administration surveys, and parent letters that
support the Reading Recovery program at my school.  Almost as important as the lesson
components themselves are the relationships that are built between students and teachers and
the tremendous growth in confidence a child experiences with this one-on-one attention where
they are finally able to experience success.  
 
The “three-cueing” system that has been "banned (as) a teaching strategy associated with the
program" is one way to effectively prompt students in order for them to learn how to make use
of the information available to them in their reading and to help them “look” at print in an
effective manner.  Whether it is visual information ("sounding out"/breaking a word into
meaningful parts), meaning (using the picture and what is happening in the story), or structure
(listening to themselves read and applying an understanding of oral language), these prompts
are used in order to get students to look at print carefully and intently.  Running records, a daily
assessment for RR and a twice weekly assessment for small groups, are analyzed according to
the strategies a child is using and neglecting in order to tailor their instruction to what
strategies they are lacking and to reinforce those strategies that are strong.  I have yet to hear
of an optional system that gives a teacher as much insight into what strategies a child is using
and neglecting when they are reading authentic text. 
 
The article also states that ... 
“Schools across Kentucky have taken advantage of the grant program, called Read to Achieve,
using it to pay for a single teacher's salary rather than training all staff in literacy, as the law
creating the grant intended.  The setup has incentivized hundreds of schools to hoard
resources, while others never see a penny." 
 
I am currently a Reading Recovery teacher in the state of Kentucky.  My teaching position, as
well as another full-time Reading Recovery teacher’s position, is fully funded by my local school
district because my district administrators know the impact the program has on our district. 
The RR program at my school was funded by the RTA grant for 16 years.  The RTA grants are
competitive grants and everyone across the state had an opportunity to apply.   We have a
large elementary school that requires 4 RR teachers to adequately serve all the students that
qualify.  Only one teacher was funded under the RTA grant for those 16 years.   In order to
comply with the grant requirements, the RTA teacher provided professional development for
her colleagues in order to build literacy understanding in the building.  The requirement of a +1
Teacher by the grant allowed the RTA teacher time to coach, model, and mentor a different
classroom teacher each year in order to help them develop a greater understanding of and
effective practice of literacy instruction.  Our resources were never "hoarded " but were used to
provide effective instruction for the students who struggle the most and to build literacy
capacity in the schools. 
 
At first, the RR program appears expensive to implement, but RR teachers service a classroom
full of students each school day as a RR teacher and reading intervention teacher of small
groups.   
 
This year, the state is providing LETRS training for classroom teachers that opt to participate.   
Several teachers at my school are involved in the training, and they say that it is transforming
their teaching! I hope it does! But I doubt that any positive transformation in classroom
instruction will eliminate the need for short-term intervention.