Tuesday, December 15, 2009

Reading Recovery® Research Evaluation

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.


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.

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