College of Education Celebrates 20 Years of Reading Intervention Program

For two decades, first-graders struggling with reading and writing have had access to specially trained teachers and individualized attention to help them improve their literacy, thanks to the Reading Recovery program at Illinois State University College of Education Mary and Jean Borg Center for Reading and Literacy.

"Illinois State has served as an official training site for Reading Recovery for 20 years and trained over 200 teachers," said Thomas Crumpler, interim director of the Mary and Jean Borg Center for Reading and Literacy.  "These skilled professionals return to their school districts throughout central Illinois and work tirelessly to improve the performance of struggling readers."

Since 1990, over 7,000 first-grade children have received services to help them catch up with their peers and continue to advance their reading skills independently. Each year, the site supports the implementation of Reading Recovery in 30-40 Central Illinois school districts.  The program is a short-term intervention of one-to-one lessons for first grade children who are struggling in reading and writing, with the goals of dramatically reducing the number of students who have extreme difficulty learning to read and write and reducing the cost of these learners to the educational systems. A supplement to classroom teaching, Reading Recovery provides students a half-hour reading and writing lesson each school day for 12 to 20 weeks with a specially trained Reading Recovery teacher.

Reading Recovery has a 75 percent success rate for children who complete a full series of lessons. Success means that formerly low-performing students:

• have demonstrated independent reading and writing strategies that will allow continued achievement
• can read within the average range of the class reading performance
• have made accelerated gains - not only increasing knowledge but doing so at an accelerated rate

"Research shows that Reading Recovery is among the most successful interventions for first grade children, and Illinois State has been at the forefront of this important work for two decades. We are very proud of the impact this program has had on the teachers and children of Illinois," said Crumpler.

In celebration of 20 years of Reading Recovery at Illinois State, nationally recognized reading education scholar and author Richard Allington will present Response to Intervention (RTI) in the Current K-12 School Curriculum at 1 p.m. on Wednesday, May 5 in room 116 of the Alumni Center.  He will speak on current education practices, Response to Intervention, Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills (DIBELS) and Reading Recovery. Allington is a professor of education at the University of Tennessee. He has served as the president of the International Reading Association, president of the National Reading Conference and International Reading Association Board of Directors member.

There will be a book signing immediately following the presentation in the Great Hall at the Alumni Center. Copies of Allington's book, No Quick Fix, The RTI Edition: Rethinking Literacy Programs in America's Elementary Schools will be available for purchase. A Reading Recovery anniversary and graduation ceremony will be held at 5:30 p.m. that day in room 118 of the Alumni Center.

Founded by New Zealand researcher Marie Clay during the 1970s, Reading Recovery was introduced in the United States in 1984. It is available in 49 states, Canada, the United Kingdom, and Australia, as well as its original New Zealand home. A Spanish component of the program, Descubriendo La Lectura, was established in Tucson in 1988 and now serves bilingual students in California, Colorado, Illinois, Massachusetts, New York, Texas, and Washington