Reading Program: Reading Recovery®

Reading Program Effectiveness

Intervention: Reading Recovery®


No studies of Reading Recovery® that fall within the scope of the English
Language Learners (ELL) review protocol meet What Works Clearinghouse
(WWC) evidence standards. The lack of studies meeting WWC evidence
standards means that, at this time, the WWC is unable to draw any
conclusions based on research about the effectiveness or ineffectiveness
of Reading Recovery® on ELL.

Program Description

Reading Recovery® is a short-term tutoring intervention designed to
serve the lowest-achieving (bottom 20%) first-grade students. The
goals of Reading Recovery® include: promoting literacy skills;
reducing the number of first-grade students who are struggling to
read; and preventing long-term reading difficulties. Reading
Recovery® supplements classroom teaching with one-to-one
tutoring sessions, generally conducted as pull-out sessions
during the school day. The tutoring, which is conducted by
trained Reading Recovery® teachers, takes place for 30 minutes
a day over a period of 12 to 20 weeks.


The WWC identified 13 studies of Reading Recovery® for English
Language Learners that were published or released between 1997 and 2008.

Three studies are within the scope of the ELL review protocol but do not
meet WWC evidence standards. These studies do not establish that the
comparison group was comparable to the treatment group prior to the start
of the intervention.

Eight studies are out of the scope of the ELL review protocol because they
have an ineligible study design. These studies do not use a comparison group.

One study is out of the scope of the ELL review protocol for reasons other
than study design. The study does not include a primary analysis of the
effectiveness of an intervention.

One study uses a single-subject design for which the WWC is currently
developing standards and, therefore, could not be reviewed at this time.

1 The English Language Learners review protocol includes only those
interventions conducted in English in the review. It does not include
interventions conducted in Spanish. Therefore, the Spanish version of
Reading Recovery® frequently used for English language learners,
Descubriendo la Lectura, was not included in this review and will not
be discussed in this intervention report.

2 The studies in this report were reviewed using WWC Evidence Standards,
Version 2.0 (see the WWC Procedures and Standards Handbook, Chapter III).

3 The descriptive information for this program was obtained from a publicly
available source: the program’s website (http://www.readingrecovery.org/,
downloaded August 2009). The WWC requests developers to review the
program description sections for accuracy from their perspective. Further
verification of the accuracy of the descriptive information for this program
is beyond the scope of this review.

Teachers, Parents and Administrators:
Please Give your Input on Reading Recovery®

WWC is an initiative of the U.S. Department of Education's

Institute of Education Sciences, the WWC:

Produces user-friendly practice guides for educators that address

instructional challenges with research-based recommendations for

schools and classrooms; Assesses the rigor of research evidence

on the effectiveness of interventions (programs, products, practices,

and policies), giving educators the tools to make informed decisions;

Develops and implements standards for reviewing and synthesizing

education research; and

Provides a public and easily accessible

registry of education evaluation researchers

to assist schools, school districts, and program

developers with designing and carrying out

rigorous evaluations.

All reports are reprinted from the

US Department of Education website

WWC for informational purposes.

Complete Reports Can Be Found

@ http://ies.ed.gov/