Those readers from the UK are almost surely familiar with the “Rose Report,” but readers in other parts of the world may not know about it. Identifying and Teaching Children and Young People with Dyslexia and Literacy Difficulties: An independent report from Sir Jim Rose to the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families was published in June 2009 and is available for free.
Overall, this the Rose Report presents a clear, sensible, and valuable understanding of reading problems and dyslexia, including many valuable recommendations for instruction. It is not perfect, to be sure. For example, there is a strong endorsement of Reading Recovery, which I find unwarrented given its record and costs. Still, a well-informed reader will find much to like in this document.
Sir Jim (Arthur James Rose) has been a primary school teacher, head administrator, and Director of Inspection for the Office for Standards in Education. He also chaired several other special commissions in addition to leading the preparation of this report.
Snag a PDF copy of Identifying and Teaching Children and Young People with Dyslexia and Literacy Difficulties from the Department for Children, Schools and Families Web site.
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Hello,
I was surprised to read that Sir Jim recommended Reading Recovery. He doesn’t! In fact I’ll quote, ” The review does NOT support the proposed Children’s Plan pilot scheme in which children with dyslexia were to receive Reading Recovery support from specialist teachers….It therefore recommends that this pilot scheme should NOT go ahead.” LDA website From the UK: the Rose Report on Dyslexia just released Page 2 paragraph 2. LDA Bulletin, Volume 41, No 2, June 2009
Kind regards
Rhonda Roe
Reading Recovery is whole-language based. Written by Marie Clay, the mother of whole-language. Jim Rose would never support whole-language.
Ms. Roe, thanks very much for the comment.
Only knowing Sir Jim by what he has written, I can not say what he would or would not support. I agree that you have quoted correctly, but I hasten to note that your quote comes from a context in which the discussion was of the “pilot schemea in which children with dyslexia will receive Reading Recovery support or one-to-one tuition from specialist dyslexia teachers.” It was that pilot scheme that was not to go forward. Why didn’t the report recommend that the pilot tests proceed? Because “it would be very difficult to be certain which [children] have dyslexia, and which do not. It would therefore not be possible to undertake the pilots proposed in the Children’s Plan with sufficient rigour for any meaningful results to be obtained.” So, the part of the quotation that was omitted in the ellipses in your version is actually quite important. For that reason, let me reproduce that paragraph (#17 from page 15 of my version; you may be quoting from 3.31 on p. 68, but the conclusion is essentially the same) in its entirety here so readers can judge for themselves what Sir Jim’s report actually did say.
Now, elsewhere in the report, I see what I consider a clear endorsement of use of the Reading Recovery in the Every Child a Reader (ECAR) program. That quote comes from 3.24-25 on page 66.
Perhaps Sir Jim’s report only responded to the specific request about whether Reading Recovery should be tested as a tutorial for beginning readers with dyslexia. Perhaps the committee did not have standing, was not authorized, to issue a stronger critique of Reading Recovery for use in Wave 3 (what I think is the equivalent of Tier 3 services in the currently popular RTI approach in the US), so all it could do was say something like, “No don’t study it with young ones with dyslexia because we can’t tell who does and doesn’t have dyslexia at that age.”
I agree with what I infer to be your misgivings about Reading Recovery, Rhonda. In the forms that I have seen it promulgated, I do not recommend it for remedial reading. For me to recommend it, it would have to be changed so radically in instructional procedures, instructional materials, and administrative methods that I think it would barely resemble the original of Marie Clay.
I did not find a view of Reading Recovery consistent with mine in the Rose Report. Instead, I found that the report supported continued use of Reading Recovery for remedial services in the review of ECaR.