ABC's OF READING: READING RECOVERY GETS RAVE REVIEWS

JACKSON -- The Jackson School District's Reading Recovery program has only been in operation for one year, but it's already getting rave reviews from teachers and parents of first grade students who have been identified and helped as at-risk readers.

Assistant Superintendent Fred Jones explained Reading Recovery is an early intervention program designed to help low achieving six year olds become readers.

Jones said the ability of a first-grade student to learn how to read -- and comprehend what he or she is reading -- is critical because student will build on those skills through the rest of the elementary and secondary grades.

Reading Recovery was first developed in New Zealand in the 1970s and later started in the Ohio Public Schools in the 1980s. It is now an international program with many individual states, including Missouri, adopting this approach to working with at-risk readers. Many area schools offer the program, including Jackson and Cape Girardeau.

During 30 minutes of daily, intense, one-on-one instruction for 12 to 20 weeks, the Jackson school district's two Reading Recovery instructors, Carol LaRue and Linda Thompson, work with at-risk students. These children, according to test indications, are in danger of not achieving at a satisfactory level in the first grade.

Jones said Jackson's Reading Recovery program began last year in the first grade at Orchard Drive Elementary School.

He said, "During the 1992-93 school year, there were 13 first grade children in the program. Seven of those children `caught up' and were discontinued from the program, two children were transferred to learning disabilities (LD) classes, three were retained in first grade, and one was promoted to second grade.

"During the current school year, four children have already been discontinued, two are nearly ready to be discontinued, and one has been referred to LD," he said.

Jones said LaRue and Thompson work with Reading Recovery students one-half of the day. The other half of their time is spent teaching remedial reading to students in other elementary grades.

Presently, Reading Recovery is only offered to a limited number of qualified first grade students at Orchard Elementary School. At-risk reading students in the other first grade classes at Gordonville, Millersville, and North Elementary cannot participate because of a lack of funds that would allow the district to expand the program, said Jones. But the school board is working toward that goal.

This fall, the district will add another Reading Recovery teacher to the staff at Orchard Elementary. Jones said that should go a long way toward serving all at-risk first grade students at Orchard.

"Our goal is to eventually extend reading recovery to all of our district's elementary schools," Jones said. "To meet that goal, we would need a minimum of four to five additional trained Reading Recovery teachers."

A major roadblock toward meeting that goal is money.

Jones said the Reading Recovery program at Orchard is 100 percent funded with Chapter 1 money from the federal government.

"But we've been told by the state education department not to depend on future federal funding for the Reading Recovery program," Jones added. "That means that eventually, the district is going to have to pick up the cost of the program, which is around $30,000 plus per teacher, by using district and state funds."

School board member and former board president Jack H. Knowlan Jr. has been a strong supporter of Reading Recovery since the board approved the program.

He said, "This program has gotten rave reviews from everyone involved with it since it started in the fall of 1992. For some of our kids, Reading Recovery will make difference on whether they go on to graduate from high school."

Knowlan said he would like to see the board authorize the expansion of the Reading Recovery program as fast as possible.

"I would like to see the program expanded to full service to meet the needs of all kids in our school district who qualify and are at-risk, as quickly as possible," said Knowlan.

"By identifying these at-risk students at an early age and working with them to develop their reading skills, we will go a long way toward helping them be successful in school.

"At the same time, as the needs of these at-risk students are met in the first grade, it should eventually eliminate the need for the remedial reading classes in the upper elementary grades. That, in turn, will eventually save our school district additional money."