College of Education

The Need for Reading Recovery

Reading failure is expensive.

Each time a child fails first grade, thousands of dollars are lost to the school community.  The national yearly average cost for educating one child is over $4,000. Once a child becomes a "reading failure" the costs to society are enormous. Children with significant reading problems can be found in the best of educational settings. Despite the method of teaching used, significant numbers of children fail or become only marginally literate. Remedial programs have been largely ineffective in helping these students.

Reading Recovery is an early intervention program for first grade students and is a proven means of preventing reading failure. Students develop a self-improving system and most leave the program within 12-16 weeks reading at the average level of their class. Implementation studies show that students studied after three years maintained the gains achieved in Reading Recovery.

The Department of Early Childhood Education (ECE) at Georgia State University houses a regional training center for Reading Recovery teacher leaders.   The program has operated since 1991, and in that time the Georgia State University Reading Recovery program has trained 60 teacher leaders and 1,075 teachers who have served over 28,000 children.

The Department of Early Childhood Education also sponsors a classroom literacy program for grades K-2 known as Literacy Collaborative.  All Literacy Collaborative schools are required to have Reading Recovery as a safety net for at-risk children.