Reading Recovery, Small-Group Instruction, and RTI

From the Marshall Memo #438

“Preventing reading difficulties early in a child’s education is a primary goal for educators as well as for society,” say Robert Schwartz and Mary Lose (Oakland University) and Maribeth Schmitt (Purdue University) in this Elementary School Journal article. Reading Recovery, an intensive literacy intervention for struggling first graders that uses highly trained teachers for one-on-one instruction, is an effective part of a school’s Response to Intervention (RTI) strategy. One study found that only 2% of at-risk students in a Reading Recovery school needed special-education services as second graders, compared to 66% of at-risk students in a school that used conventional instruction and small-group remediation.

But Reading Recovery’s per-student price tag had led many educators to explore other less-expensive interventions, including small-group instruction by Reading Recovery teachers and one-on-one instruction by less intensively trained educators. In a 1994 study, Pinnell et al. studied the impact on children’s reading achievement of teachers trained in Reading Recovery and other configurations with different numbers of students. Here are students’ post-test text reading levels:

• Reading Recovery-trained teachers working one on one with students – 10.58
• Reading Recovery-trained teachers working with groups of 3-5 students – 6.25
• Teachers with abbreviated Reading Recovery training working one on one – 5.95
• Teachers using direct instruction working one on one with students  – 4.31
• Standard Title I small-group instruction (the control group) – 4.72

The “pure” Reading Recovery treatment (first on the list above) was the only one in which these high-risk students did well on all four assessments used and the only one in which students demonstrated sustained gains at the beginning of second grade. 

Another study conducted in 2007 by Burroughs-Lange and Douetil in London schools serving disadvantaged students found a 14-month difference in reading age norms at the end of first grade between students who had Reading Recovery and those who had standard remediation with teaching assistants. The Reading Recovery students had an end-of-year text reading level of 15 while the control group had an average text reading level of 4.4. 

Schwartz, Lose, and Schmitt conducted their own study comparing student outcomes of Reading Recovery teachers working one on one and with groups of 2, 3, and 5 students. Similar to the 1994 study described above, they found significant differences in post-test text reading levels between one-on-one and small-group instruction:

• Reading Recovery-trained teachers working one on one with students – 11.62
• Reading Recovery-trained teachers working with groups of 2-5 students – 8.37

Here are the percentages of students reading at text level 10 or above at the end of the intervention period:

• Reading Recovery-trained teachers working one on one with students – 61%
• Reading Recovery-trained teachers working with groups of 2 students – 38%
• Reading Recovery-trained teachers working with groups of 3 students – 26%
• Reading Recovery-trained teachers working with groups of 5 students – 19%

“Based on this analysis,” conclude the authors, “it appears that the 1:1 treatment is the only condition that reduces the percentage of students who are at risk by reducing the gap between those initially low-performing students and their average peers.” 

The authors go on to say that, while Reading Recovery is the best intervention for at-risk first graders, other interventions work for students with less severe deficits. Each school, they say, should put together the most effective combination, keeping in mind these variables:

• Teachers’ professional expertise;
• Teacher-student ratio;
• Students’ entering literacy levels;
• The timing of the interventions available.

“No one approach to intervention on behalf of struggling readers will work for all students,” conclude Schwartz, Lose, and Schmitt. “A comprehensive approach to early intervention that combines individual and small-group components can support educational opportunity for all children… The mix of individual and small-group services should be sufficient to reduce the achievement gap across first grade… The question is not whether individual, small-group, or classroom instruction is most effective; it is clear that all are essential. Rather, an RTI approach should focus on how best to achieve optimum literacy outcomes for all learners, in a timely manner and based on their individual needs.” 

“Effects of Teacher-Student Ratio in Response to Intervention Approaches” by Robert Schwartz, Mary Lose, and Maribeth Schmitt in Elementary School Journal, June 2012 (Vol. 112, #4, p. 547-567),