Making a Case for Prevention in Education

Background
Askew, Kaye, Frasier, Mobasher, Anderson, and Rodriguez collected longitudinal data on former Reading Recovery children in 45 randomly selected schools through fourth grade. The study focused on discontinued children (those students who met the rigorous criteria for success) in order to see if children who reached average performance in Grade 1 continued to score within average ranges in subsequent years.

Findings
At the end of fourth grade, a large majority of these children had scores considered to be average or meeting passing criteria on standardized (Gates-MacGinitie Reading Test) and state assessment measures, a very satisfactory outcome in their school settings. They were generally perceived by their fourth-grade teachers as performing within average ranges of their classrooms. Relatively few were placed in tertiary or remedial settings. Findings match Juel’s (1988; see Journal of Educational Psychology, 80(4), 437-447) conclusions that children who are average readers in Grade 1 remain average readers in Grade 4, supporting the need for intervention in first grade.

The abstract first appeared in What Evidence Says About Reading Recovery. (2002). Columbus, OH: Reading Recovery Council of North America.