Purdue News
Purdue News
As the state headquarters for Indiana's Reading Recovery program and one of 19 teacher leader training sites in the United States, Purdue's School of Education is hosting a series of workshops and an implementation institute through Tuesday, April 15.
"There is not another educator who has directly affected the lives of so many children and teachers throughout the world with her powerful teaching," 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 each child with a specially trained teacher for daily 30-minute tutoring sessions. This 12- to 16-week intervention allows the majority of students to accelerate their progress, catch up with their peers and continue to learn on their own without further remediation.
Clay now travels the world as a facilitator and consultant to Reading Recovery programs in her native New Zealand, Australia, the United States, Canada, England, Wales and Northern Ireland. Reading Recovery will soon be available to Spanish-speaking countries as well.
"My role now is to assist program sites with implementation issues, which vary a great deal from place to place," Clay said. "There are different stages of implementing the program, and each stage has its own set of concerns."
Clay also gathers information from program administrators to keep the curriculum fresh and up-to-date.
"A question I'm frequently asked is how can a teaching method developed in 1976 still be effective in 1997?" Clay said. "It's something we're working on all the time."
Reading Recovery requires an initial and ongoing investment by school districts, but studies show that a district will realize significant long-term savings through reductions in grade retentions, remedial Title I services and special education placements. These savings can more than offset the short-term costs of implementing and running the program, Schmitt said.
The program has a proven success record since being implemented at Purdue in 1993. Sixteen teacher leaders have been trained at the West Lafayette campus. They in turn have trained 227 Indiana teachers in the Reading Recovery intervention method.
"According to the statistics we've compiled through 1996, Reading Recovery has served 3,100 Indiana first-graders who were at risk of literacy failure," Schmitt said. "Of the children who completed the program, 86 percent caught up with their peers."
Clay, professor emerita at the University of Auckland, spent 25 years training child psychologists in the New Zealand education system. This work led to her interest in the acquisition of reading and writing skills in young children. Her Reading Recovery teaching method was adopted as a national program in New Zealand in the early 1980s. It was brought to the United States in 1984 and has been implemented in 49 states and the District of Columbia.
Clay is working closely with teacher leaders from five states in a professional development session today (4/11). On Saturday (4/12) she will be the keynote speaker for a meeting of 350 Indiana Reading Recovery teachers at Harrison High School in rural West Lafayette.
Clay's visit continues on Monday, April 14, with a two-day implementation institute in the Purdue Memorial Union. Representatives of the Indiana Department of Education will participate, along with administrators for Indiana's Reading Recovery teacher training sites. Formal presentations will be delivered by officials from Fort Wayne Community Schools, the Metropolitan Schools District of Warren Township (Indianapolis), the Metropolitan School District of Lawrence Township (Indianapolis) and Anderson Community Schools.
Source: Maribeth Schmitt, (765) 494-5683; e-mail, mschmitt@vm.cc.purdue.edu
Writer: Sharon Bowker, (765) 494-2077; e-mail, sharon_bowker@purdue.edu
Purdue News Service: (765) 494-2096; e-mail, purduenews@purdue.edu
