Reading Recovery Connections
A blog for Reading Recovery and early literacy professionals
Building an Even Stronger Sense of Community at National Conference
by Billy Molasso I’ve had an incredible welcome to the Reading Recovery community! As you may know, I joined RRCNA this past August as the new executive director at Jady Johnson’s retirement. I’m thankful for [...]
Active Problem Solving in Reading is NOT a Guessing Game
by Jamie R. Lipp, Ph.D. “They are not guessing. They are computing the likelihood of the features that they recognise belonging to the word they have predicted” (Clay, 2016, p.145). You may have heard [...]
Responding to the Reading Wars: Everyone’s Job
by Patricia L. Scharer, Ph.D. The Reading Wars have a long, long history. Over the past 100 years, adversaries have argued for and against numerous approaches: whole word, literature-based reading, look-say method, sight words, Initial [...]
What’s the Story?
by Amy Smith At the center of all advocacy work is a story. Reading Recovery has a rich tapestry of stories with compelling themes like renewal, transformation, and hope. Our data tells one piece of [...]
The Three Cueing Systems in Beginning Reading Instruction: Good Idea or Hoax?
by Robert Schwartz A main skirmish in the Reading Wars centers on phonics first or building on the strengths a child brings. In his blog, Dr. Tim Shanahan, a knowledgeable and highly respected literacy researcher [...]
The Stories We Tell Ourselves: Reading Recovery and the MSV Myth
by Jeffery Williams Every culture across time has developed a set of stories, tales, and myths that were designed to help explain the complexities of the world. Such lore is handed down across generations to [...]
Getting to Know Our Writers: Strategies for Any Classroom
By Lynne Dorfman & Diane Esolen Dougherty A successful writing workshop depends on many factors, including how well we get to know our students. Throughout the school year, but especially in the beginning of the [...]
How Do I Navigate the Roundabout in Reading Recovery?
by Kim Reynolds You know that feeling that you get in the pit of your stomach when things are uncomfortable or unpredictable? It is not a feeling that I get very often, but it happens [...]
The Power of the Cross-Check: No Penalties in the Reading Process
by Jamie Lipp My oldest nephew is a Division One college lacrosse player (proud aunt). Recently, we traveled to a game to watch him play. In the middle of an intense play, one of his [...]
Get to the Root of It
by Kristi McCullough While receiving Literacy Collaborative training, the professors always told the class that word-study instruction needed to be “powerful” and “generative.” I remember thinking to myself, I know “powerful” word study means doing [...]