Purdue News
Purdue NewsNOTE TO JOURNALISTS: Dame Marie Clay will be available for interviews with journalists from 12:30 p.m. to 1:00 p.m. Friday, April 11, in the Reading Recovery Teacher Training Classroom in the Liberal Arts and Education Building. Journalists should report to Room 3202; from there they will be directed to the classroom.
WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. -- Dame Marie Clay, the New Zealand educator who developed the Reading Recovery early intervention literacy program, will be on Purdue's West Lafayette campus April 11-15.
Clay will lead two workshops and an implementation institute during her visit. Purdue University's School of Education is the headquarters for Reading Recovery in Indiana, and it is one of 19 teacher leader training sites in the United States.
"There is not another educator who has directly affected the lives of so many children and teachers throughout the world with her powerful teachings," said Maribeth Schmitt, director of Reading Recovery at Purdue. "We are very fortunate to have her in Indiana for an extended visit."
Reading Recovery targets first-grade students who are having difficulty developing literacy skills. The program pairs children with a specially trained teacher for daily 30-minute tutoring sessions. This intervention generally lasts for 12 to 16 weeks, and it allows the majority of students to accelerate their progress, catch up with their peers and continue to learn on their own without further remediation.
Indiana Superintendent of Public Instruction Suellen Reed included Reading Recovery as the early intervention component of her "Reading and Literacy Initiative for a Better Indiana," now being considered by the Indiana Senate. The House-approved budget includes $8 million for the program over the next two years.
Reading Recovery was adopted as a national program in New Zealand before being brought to the United States in 1984. It has since been implemented in 49 states and the District of Columbia. In 1993, Purdue began training teacher leaders, who return to their school districts to train Reading Recovery teachers.
Clay will join Purdue clinical teacher leader Tammy Yountz and Schmitt to conduct a professional development workshop for teacher leaders from Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, Virginia and Wisconsin on Friday, April 11, in the Liberal Arts and Education Building. On Saturday, April 12, Clay will be the keynote speaker at a teacher workshop for 350 Indiana Reading Recovery teachers at Harrison High School in rural West Lafayette. Her visit continues on Monday and Tuesday (4/14 and 4/15) with an implementation institute in the Purdue Memorial Union. Representatives of the State Department of Education will participate, along with administrators for Indiana's Reading Recovery teacher training sites.
CONTACT: Schmitt, (765) 494-5683; e-mail, mschmitt@vm.cc.purdue.edu
Purdue News Service: (765) 494-2096; e-mail, purduenews@purdue.edu
