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Intervention: Reading Recovery®

Effectiveness


Findings

The WWC review of interventions for beginning reading addresses student outcomes in four domains: alphabetics, reading fluency, comprehension, and general reading achievement. 10 Reading Recovery® studies included in this report cover all four domains and most of the constructs within each domain. 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. The results are presented by domain and construct for all the Reading Recovery® studies that the WWC reviewed.

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®.

Alphabetics. Two studies examined the effects of Reading Recovery® on the phonemic awareness construct. Schwartz (2005) reported no statistically significant effects for the phonemic awareness measures—the deletion task and the Yopp-Singer Phoneme Segmentation Test—but the effects on both measures were positive and considered substantively important based on the 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—a 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, DeFord, and Lyons (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. 11 Iverson and Tunmer (1993) found, and the WWC confirmed, a statistically significant positive effect 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, DeFord, and Lyons (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 met WWC evidence standards and demonstrated statistically significant positive effects. One additional study met WWC evidence standards with reservations and showed 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, there was one study with a strong design that demonstrated statistically significant positive effects.

Comprehension. Two studies examined the effects of Reading Recovery® on the reading comprehension construct. Pinnell, DeFord, and Lyons (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, DeFord, and Lyons (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, DeFord, and Lyons (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, 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) found, and the WWC confirmed, positive and statistically significant effects of Reading Recovery® on two subtests of the Observation Survey: Dictation and Writing Vocabulary. Iverson and Tunmer (1993) found, and the WWC confirmed, statistically significant positive 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 met WWC evidence standards with reservations and demonstrated statistically significant positive effects.

Rating of effectiveness

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,12 the size of the difference between participants in the intervention and the comparison conditions, and the consistency in findings across studies (see the WWC Intervention Rating Scheme).

10 For definitions of the domains, see the Beginning Reading Protocol.
11 In this case, the author did not control for pretest differences between groups; however, the WWC did account for pretest differences.
12 The level of statistical significance was reported by the study authors or, where necessary, calculated by the WWC to correct for clustering within classrooms or schools and for multiple comparisons. For an explanation, see the WWC Tutorial on Mismatch. See Technical Details of WWC-Conducted Computations for the formulas the WWC used to calculate the statistical significance. In this report, such adjustments were made for Pinnell, DeFord, and Lyons (1988); Iverson and Tunmer (1993); and Pinnell et al. (1994).

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