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The WWC review of interventions for beginning reading addresses student outcomes in four domains: alphabetics, fluency, comprehension, and general reading achievement. The studies included in this report cover all four domains. The findings below present the authors’ estimates and WWC-calculated estimates of the size and the statistical significance of the effects of Reading Recovery® on students.11
For the four beginning reading domains, subtests of the Clay Observation Survey were used in some of the studies. The Clay Observation Survey was developed by Dr. Marie Clay, who also developed Reading Recovery®. Although there is no evidence of obvious overalignment between the measure and the intervention (intervention students receiving exposure to the measure during the course of treatment), it should be noted that the same person developed the intervention and the measure.
Alphabetics. Two studies examined the effects of Reading Recovery® on the phonemic awareness construct in the alphabetics domain. Schwartz (2005) reported no statistically significant effects for the phonemic awareness measures—a phoneme deletion task and the Yopp-Singer Phoneme Segmentation Test—but the effects on both measures were positive and considered substantively important based on WWC criteria (that is, at least 0.25). Iverson and Tunmer (1993) reported, and the WWC confirmed, statistically significant positive effects of the Reading Recovery® intervention on two phonemic awareness measures—the phoneme deletion task and the Yopp-Singer Phoneme Segmentation Test.
Three studies examined the effects of Reading Recovery® on the print awareness construct in the alphabetics domain. Pinnell, DeFord, and Lyons (1988) reported, and the WWC confirmed, a statistically significantly positive effect of Reading Recovery® on the Concepts About Print subtest of the Observation Survey of Early Literacy Achievement. Schwartz (2005) reported, and the WWC confirmed, a statistically significant positive effect of Reading Recovery® on the Concepts About Print subtest of the Observation Survey. Iverson and Tunmer (1993) found a statistically significant positive effect of Reading Recovery® on the Concepts About Print subtest of the Observation Survey. The significance of the effect was confirmed by the WWC.
Three studies examined the effects of Reading Recovery® on the letter knowledge construct in the alphabetics domain. Pinnell et al. (1988) did not find a statistically significant effect for Reading Recovery® on the Letter Identification subtest of the Observation Survey. Schwartz (2005) reported a statistically significant positive effect of Reading Recovery® on the Letter Identification subtest of the Observation Survey, but according to WWC criteria, this effect was not statistically significant or large enough to be considered substantively important.12 Iverson and Tunmer (1993) found, and the WWC confirmed, statistically significant positive effects of Reading Recovery® on the Letter Identification subtest of the Observation Survey.
Three studies examined the effects of Reading Recovery® on the phonics construct of the alphabetics domain. Pinnell et al. (1988) found a statistically significant positive effect on the Word Recognition subtest of the Observation Survey. In WWC calculations, there was no statistically significant effect, but the positive effect was large enough to be considered substantively important. Schwartz (2005) found, and the WWC confirmed, a statistically significant positive effect of Reading Recovery® on the Word Recognition subtest of the Observation Survey. Iverson and Tunmer (1993) found statistically significant positive effects of Reading Recovery® on the Dolch Word Recognition Test, the Word Recognition subtest of the Observation Survey, and a pseudoword decoding task. The significance of the effects was confirmed by the WWC.
Overall, in the alphabetics domain, two studies with strong designs meet WWC evidence standards and demonstrate statistically significant positive effects. One additional study meets WWC evidence standards with reservations and shows statistically significant positive effects.
Fluency. Schwartz (2005) found, and the WWC confirmed, positive and statistically significant effects of Reading Recovery® on the Slosson Oral Reading Test–Revised and the Text Reading Level subtest of the Observation Survey.
In the fluency domain, one study with a strong design demonstrated statistically significant positive effects.
Comprehension. Two studies examined the effects of Reading Recovery® on the reading comprehension construct. Pinnell et al. (1988) found a positive and statistically significant effect of Reading Recovery® on the Reading Comprehension subtest of the Comprehensive Test of Basic Skills (CTBS). The significance of the effect was confirmed by the WWC. Schwartz (2005) reported no statistically significant effect of Reading Recovery® on the Degrees of Reading Power Test.
One study examined the effect of Reading Recovery® on the vocabulary construct of the comprehension domain. Pinnell et al. (1988) found, and the WWC confirmed, a positive and statistically significant effect of Reading Recovery® on the Reading Vocabulary subtest of the CTBS.
In the comprehension domain, there were two studies with strong designs. One study showed statistically significant positive effects, and the other study showed an indeterminate effect.
General reading achievement. Baenen et al. (1997) did not find a statistically significant effect of Reading Recovery® on grade retention. Pinnell et al. (1988) found, and the WWC confirmed, positive and statistically significant effects of Reading Recovery® on two subtests of the Observation Survey: Hearing and Recording Sounds in Words (Dictation) and Writing Vocabulary. Pinnell et al. (1994) found statistically significant positive effects of Reading Recovery® on the Gates-MacGinitie Reading Test, the Dictation subtest of the Observation Survey, and the Woodcock Reading Mastery Test–Revised. The statistical significance of the effects was confirmed by the WWC. Schwartz (2005) and Iverson and Tunmer (1993) found, and the WWC confirmed, positive and statistically significant effects of Reading Recovery® on two subtests of the Observation Survey: Dictation and Writing Vocabulary.
In the general reading achievement domain, there were three studies with strong designs and statistically significant positive effects. One study had a strong design with indeterminate effects. One additional study meets WWC evidence standards with reservations and demonstrates statistically significant positive effects.
The WWC rates the effects of an intervention in a given outcome domain as positive, potentially positive, mixed, no discernible effects, potentially negative, or negative. The rating of effectiveness takes into account four factors: the quality of the research design, the statistical significance of the findings, the size of the difference between participants in the intervention condition and the comparison condition, and the consistency in findings across studies (see the WWC Intervention Rating Scheme).
|Institute of Education Sciences
