Annual Monitoring of Reading Recovery: the Data for 2007

Students' Progress in Reading Recovery

Students Entering Reading Recovery

As mentioned previously, a total of 10,777 students took part in Reading Recovery during 2007. Of these students, almost three-quarters (73%) entered Reading Recovery for the first time in 2007. The remaining students had either been carried over from 2006 (23%), or transferred from another school (3%).

Table 5: How students entered Reading Recovery

Students’ entry in Reading Recovery in 2007	N	%
Carried over from 2006 from same school	2,482	23.0
Transferred from another schoola	279	2.6
Entered Reading Recovery for the first time in 2007	7,903	73.3
Missing datab	113	1.0
Total	10,777	100.0

Table 5 Notes:

a - Some double-counting will have occurred here, as these students are also likely to be grouped with those in Reading Recovery in their previous school, either as being carried over from 2006 or as entering Reading Recovery during 2007.
b - Includes the 38 students that were identified as having participated in Reading Recovery from their school report, but had no corresponding student report.
 

As shown in Table 6, more than half (58%) of all students in Reading Recovery during 2007 successfully discontinued their series of lessons. A further 24 percent had responded to Reading Recovery and were to be carried over to next year, with the expectation of completing in 2008¹.

Students in Reading Recovery and their Outcomes

Table 6: Students’ outcomes in Reading Recovery

Type of outcome	Students in Reading Recovery
	N	%
Child successfully discontinued lessons	6,291	58.4
Child responding and to be carried over into 2008	2,571	23.9
Child referred for specialist help or long-term reading support	972	9.0
Child responding but not able to be continued	183	1.7
Child left the school before completiona	609	5.7
Missing data	151	1.4
Total	10,777	100.0

Table 6 Note:

a - Some double-counting is likely here, as some of these students may have joined Reading Recovery at their new school. 

 

Students Exiting Reading Recovery, their Outcomes by Entry Status

Table 7 below presents the outcomes for students who exited Reading Recovery in 2007, according to how they entered the intervention. Consistent with the findings presented in previous reports, the majority (80%) of students that entered Reading Recovery in 2007 successfully discontinued their series of lessons (compared to 80% in 2006 and 87% in 2005).

Students that had been carried over from 2006 and those that had transferred from another school were more likely to be referred on for specialist help (16% and 17% respectively) than those who entered Reading Recovery for the first time in 2007 (10%). However it is important to note that despite this, the majority of students that had been carried over from 2006 (76%) and had been transferred from another school (69%) did in fact achieve the levels required to successfully discontinue their series of lessons.

Table 7: Exiting students’ Reading Recovery outcome by entry status^a

Type of Outcome	Carried over from 2006		Transferred from another school		Entered in 2007
	N	%	N	%	N	%
Child successfully discontinued Reading Recovery lessons	1,877	76.1	165	69.0	4,249	79.5
Child referred on for specialist help or long-term reading support	397	16.1	41	17.2	534	10.0
Child responding but not able to be continued	23	0.9	7	2.9	153	2.9
Child left the school before completionb	171	6.9	26	10.9	412	7.7
Total	2,468	100.0	239	100.0	5,348	100.0

Table 7 Notes:

a - This analysis excludes students who were carried over into 2008. The percentages also exclude any missing data on entry and/or outcome.
b - Some double-counting is likely here, as some of these students may have joined Reading Recovery at their new school.
 

 

Figure 1: Type of further support for students referred on for specialist help or long-term reading support, as reported by schools^a

 

Figure 1 Note: 

a - This figure is based on n=972 students who were referred on for specialist help or long term reading support in 2007.

Almost 1 in 10 students (9%) in Reading Recovery during 2007 were referred on for specialist help or long-term reading support. As reported by schools, the majority of these students were referred on to either Resource Teachers: Literacy or Resource Teachers: Learning and Behaviour (see Figure 1 above). Slightly more than 1 in 10 referred on students were transferred to other support programmes within the school, such as Rainbow Reading, reading clinics and/or small group sessions.

Figure 2: Why discontinued students did not complete Reading Recovery^a

 

Figure 2 Note:

a - This figure is based on the n=183 students who were responding to Reading Recovery but were not able to be continued.

A small proportion (2%) of students were responding to Reading Recovery but were unable to continue with the intervention. As shown in Figure 2, just over a quarter of these students had their lessons discontinued due to a lack of resources (e.g. there were no longer any Reading Recovery teachers available or no more funding, hours or spaces available). Additionally, almost a quarter were unable to continue as their school was no longer offering Reading Recovery while one in five were taken off Reading Recovery by the school because of behavioural or attendance issues.

Students Exiting Reading Recovery, their Outcomes by Gender, Ethnicity and Decile

Gender

Tables 8, 9 and 10 below, present the outcomes for students who exited Reading Recovery in 2007, by gender, ethnicity and their school decile rating. Table 8 shows that as a percentage of those who left Reading Recovery in 2007, girls (82%) were more likely than boys (76%), to have successfully discontinued their series of lessons. In contrast, boys were more likely to be referred on for specialist help or long-term reading support (14%, compared to 9% for girls).

Table 8: Exiting students’ Reading Recovery outcomes by gender^a

Type of Outcome	Boys % (n=5,284)	Girls % (n=2,771)	Total % (n=8,055)
Child successfully discontinued lessons	76.3	81.5	78.1
Child referred for specialist help or long-term reading support	13.6	9.1	12.1
Child responding but not able to be continued	2.3	2.2	2.3
Child left the school before completionb	7.7	7.2	7.6
Total	100.0	100.0	100.0

Table 8 Notes: 

a - This analysis excludes students who were carried over to 2008. The percentages also exclude any missing data on gender and/or outcome.
b - Some double-counting is likely here, as some of these students may have engaged in Reading Recovery at their new school.

Ethnicity

In Table 9, students have been grouped into the following five ethnic groups: Māori, Pasifika, Asian, NZ European and ‘Other’. The results presented in Table 9 show that of those students who exited Reading Recovery in 2007, Asian (82%) and NZ European (83%) students were more likely to have successfully discontinued their series of lessons than Māori (71%) and Pasifika (73%) students. In contrast, Māori and Pasifika students were more likely than Asian and NZ European students to be referred on for specialist help or long-term reading support, or to have left the school before their series of lessons could be discontinued.

Table 9: Exiting students’ Reading Recovery outcome by ethnicity^a

Type of Outcome	Māori %	Pasifika %	Asian %	NZ European %	Other %
	(n=2,311)	(n=1,073)	(n=321)	(n=3,946)	(n=385)
Child successfully discontinued lessons	71.1	72.5	82.2	82.6	85.7
Child referred for specialist help or long-term reading support	14.6	15.5	8.7	10.5	6.0
Child responding but not able to be continued	2.9	2.4	2.2	1.9	2.3
Child left the school before completionb	11.5	9.6	6.9	4.9	6.0
Total	100.0	100.0	100.0	100.0	100.0

Table 9 Notes:

a - This analysis excludes students who were carried over into 2008. The percentages also exclude any missing data on ethnicity and/or outcome.
b - Some double-counting is likely here, as some of these students may have engaged in Reading Recovery at their new school.

Decile

As shown in Table 10, students from higher decile schools were more likely to have successfully discontinued their series of lessons than those from lower decile schools (e.g. 86% of students from decile 10 schools successfully discontinued their series of lessons, compared to 68% from decile 1 schools).

Students from lower decile schools were more likely to be referred on for specialist help (e.g. 17% for decile 1 schools, compared to 8% for decile 10 schools) and to have left the school before completing their series of lessons (e.g. 12% for decile 1 schools compared to 4% for decile 10 schools).

Table 10: Exiting students’ Reading Recovery outcome by decile^a

Decile	Successfully discontinued		'Referred on' for specialist support		Child responding but not able to be continued		Child left school before completion		Total
	N	%	N	%	N	%	N	%	N
1	658	67.9	165	17.0	33	3.4	113	11.7	969
2	622	72.0	130	15.0	18	2.1	94	10.9	864
3	510	73.4	104	15.0	24	3.5	57	8.2	695
4	662	76.5	110	12.7	19	2.2	74	8.6	865
5	644	79.3	92	11.3	15	1.8	61	7.5	812
6	509	79.9	65	10.2	18	2.8	45	7.1	637
7	670	81.8	83	10.1	20	2.4	46	5.6	819
8	568	82.8	75	10.9	7	1.0	36	5.2	686
9	684	83.8	80	9.8	7	0.9	45	5.5	816
10	760	85.7	68	7.7	21	2.4	38	4.3	887

Table 10 Note:

a - This analysis excludes students who were carried over into 2008. The percentages also exclude any missing data on decile and/or outcome. 

 

Students who Successfully Discontinued Reading Recovery, by Region

Table 11 below shows those students who successfully discontinued their series of lessons in 2007, as a proportion of students who exited Reading Recovery in 2007, by region.

The proportion of exiting students who had successfully discontinued their Reading Recovery lessons ranged from 71 percent in the Northland and Marlborough regions to 83 percent in the Otago region. Compared to 2006, the percentage of successfully discontinued students increased by 6 percent in the Otago and Southland regions but decreased by 4 percent in the Auckland and Gisborne regions. 

Table 11: Proportion of exited students who successfully discontinued Reading Recovery by region

Local Body (Region)	Six year olds who successfully discontinued Reading Recovery in 2007		Total number of students who left Reading Recovery in 2007a
	N	% of total	N
Northland Region	266	71.1	374
Auckland Region	1,577	74.6	2,113
Waikato Region	665	79.5	836
Bay of Plenty Region	377	78.9	478
Gisborne Region	96	78.7	122
Hawkes Bay Region	323	80.5	401
Taranaki Region	196	80.7	243
Manawatu-Wanganui Region	369	77.8	474
Wellington Region	829	81.6	1,016
Tasman Region	93	82.3	113
Nelson Region	66	75.0	88
Marlborough Region	65	70.7	92
West Coast Region	76	74.5	102
Canterbury Region	742	79.8	930
Otago Region	344	82.7	416
Southland Region	207	80.5	257
Total	6,291	78.1	8,055

Table 11 Note:

a - Excludes students with missing outcome information.
 

Entry Scores for Successfully Discontinued and Referred On Students

Students involved with Reading Recovery during 2007 were assessed on both reading (Instructional Text Level and Burt Word Reading Test) and writing (Clay Writing Vocabulary Task) measures.

Figure 3 below, presents the Instructional Text Level entry scores for successfully discontinued students, relative to those who were referred on. This figure demonstrates that students who were referred on for specialist help tended to have lower scores at entry. It is important to note however, that many students with low scores upon entry did have their series of lessons successfully discontinued. A similar pattern of results was observed for the Burt Word Reading Test and the Writing Vocabulary Task (Clay) (see Appendix Figures 2 and 3).

Figure 3: Reading Recovery Instructional Text Level scores at entry

The Mean Number of Reading Recovery Sessions and Calendar Weeks for Successfully Discontinued and Referred On Students

Table 12 below shows by decile, the average number of half-hour sessions and the average number of calendar weeks that were attended by students who were successfully discontinued and students who were referred on for specialist or long-term reading support.

On average, students who were referred on for further support spent more time in Reading Recovery than those whose series of lessons were successfully discontinued. That is, referred on students spent an average of 23 weeks (87.4 lessons) in Reading Recovery, while successfully discontinued students spent an average of 19 weeks (76.8 lessons).

Of students whose series of lessons were successfully discontinued, those from lower decile schools spent slightly more time in Reading Recovery than students from higher decile schools. For example, students in decile 1 schools had an average of 79 half hour sessions over 21 weeks in Reading Recovery, compared to 75 half hour sessions over 18 weeks for students in decile 10 schools.

In cases where students were referred on for specialist help or long-term reading support, those in higher decile schools attended considerably more half hour sessions than those in lower decile schools. There was no clear pattern in the number of weeks these students spent in Reading Recovery by decile.

Table 12: Mean sessions and calendar weeks in Reading Recovery for successfully discontinued and referred on students by decile

Decilea	Child successfully discontinued       Reading Recovery			Child referred for specialist help or       long-term reading support
	N	Mean Number       of 30 Minute Sessions	Mean Number       of Calendar Weeks	N	Mean Number       of 30 Minute Sessions	Mean Number       of Calendar Weeks
1	658	78.7	20.8	165	79.8	22.9
2	622	80.2	20.7	130	83.3	22.2
3	510	80.4	20.2	104	84.5	21.8
4	662	77.4	19.5	110	88.0	23.0
5	644	75.2	19.1	92	90.8	23.0
6	509	77.4	19.4	65	86.6	22.4
7	670	75.4	18.6	83	91.4	23.8
8	568	73.4	18.6	75	91.9	23.0
9	684	75.7	18.8	80	95.8	24.1
10	760	74.8	18.2	68	93.5	23.4
Total	6,287	76.8	19.3	972	87.4	22.9

Table 12 Note: 

a - Excludes students with missing decile information.
 

Time in Reading Recovery for Successfully Discontinued Students, by Gender and Ethnicity

Table 13 shows the mean number of half-hour sessions and calendar weeks for students who successfully discontinued Reading Recovery in 2007 by gender and (grouped) ethnicity.

On average, boys attended slightly more sessions than girls. In addition, Māori and Pasifika students had slightly more sessions and spent longer in Reading Recovery than Asian and NZ European students, although it should be noted that these differences are very small.

Table 13: Mean sessions and calendar weeks in Reading Recovery for successfully discontinued students by gender and ethnicity

Ethnicitya	Mean number       of sessions		Mean number       of calendar weeks
	Boys	Girls	Boys	Girls
Māori	79.3	77.5	20.5	19.9
Pasifika	81.5	75.5	21.0	20.0
Asian	77.4	70.5	18.9	17.8
Other	74.9	68.8	18.6	17.4
NZ European	77.3	72.8	19.1	18.1
Total	78.2	74.2	19.6	18.8

Table 13 Note:

a - Excludes students of ‘unknown’ ethnicity and those with missing ethnicity information.

 

Footnote

1. However, it can be seen in from Table 7 that approximately three-quarters of students carried over from the previous year, go on to successfully discontinue their series of Reading Recovery lessons.