Children who need extra help receive it and many of them are able to move quickly enough to become independent readers and writers. She is anxious to share what she knows so that we can apply similar strategies in our classroom where we can. We have watched some of our lowest grade 1 students progress as fast and many times faster than other grade 1 students. Thus, they should not receive on-going services they would have needed without the program. Other students have benefitted from the increased emphasis on reading and teacher awareness of the needs of at-risk readers.
Emotional gains are less measurable, but evident.
A child who would have been labeled learning disabled, now reads in the average of his class. The biggest change in my view of the reading process is that I now realize that it is a very personal, unique experience for each child. Before my Reading Recovery training, I did not understand the complex strategies that were involved in orchestrating the reading process, and how each child integrates these strategies in personal ways. This page was last revised April 13, 2001.