Selecting Reading Recovery Children

Selection of Children

Selection of children for Reading Recovery and Descubriendo la Lectura is based upon the following rationale provided by Marie Clay: Reading Recovery is designed for children who are the lowest achievers in the class/age group. What is used is an inclusive definition. Principals have sometimes argued to exclude this or that category of children or to save places for children who might seem to "benefit the most" but that is not using the full power of the program. It has been one of the surprises of Reading Recovery that all kinds of children with all kinds of difficulties can be included, can learn, and can reach average-band performance for their class in both reading and writing achievement. Exceptions are not made for children of lower intelligence, for second-language children, for children with low language skills, for children with poor motor coordination, for children who seem immature, for children who score poorly on readiness measures, or for children who have…been categorized by someone else as learning disabled.

Standards

• In all decisions, the lowest-achieving children (based upon Observation Survey or Instrumento de Observación tasks) must be selected for service first.
• Economy of time in selecting and serving children is critical to program efficiency. At the beginning of the year, administer Observation Survey or Instrumento de Observación and begin service to children within 2 weeks. During the year, selection of children should occur within 2 days of an available teaching slot.
• Students selected for Descubriendo la Lectura must be in a bilingual education program receiving Spanish reading instruction throughout first grade.

Guidelines

• To make accelerated progress, Reading Recovery/Descubriendo la Lectura children need to be in heterogeneously grouped classes with exposure to peer models, appropriate curriculum, and opportunity to move to average grade-level performance.
• The development of a school team for Reading Recovery/Descubriendo la Lectura is strongly urged. The team can help monitor program progress, communicate information about the program, and assist with difficult selection decisions.
• It is strongly recommended that programs be designed for bilingual students in order to strengthen language and literacy in both languages.