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.

The remit requires the review to make recommendations on “how best to take forward the commitment in the Children’s Plan to establish a pilot scheme in which children with dyslexia will receive Reading Recovery support or one-to-one tuition from specialist dyslexia teachers”. For most children in Years 1 and 2 with significant reading difficulties, it would be very difficult to be certain which of them 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. The review therefore recommends that these pilots should not go ahead.

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.

Through the roll-out of Every Child a Reader (ECaR), Reading Recovery is being increasingly used as a literacy early intervention in England. Reading Recovery was originally developed in the 1970s in New Zealand by Marie Clay. It targets 5 to 6 year old children identified as falling within the lowest achieving in their class. There were similarities between the ‘whole language’ theory of reading and Clay’s early philosophy. However, Reading Recovery, as now being delivered under the umbrella of ECaR, is reported to have developed a ‘cumulative’ approach to phonics.

The ECaR programme is a three-wave model based on promoting Quality First teaching (Wave 1) in keeping with the Simple View of Reading, ensuring effective small group interventions (Wave 2), and providing intensive one-to-one tuition (Wave 3) for those children in Years 1 and 2 with the greatest needs. Within ECaR, Reading Recovery is the programme of choice for Wave 3 provision. This comprises 12-20 weeks of intensive, individual (one-to-one), daily tuition involving 30-minute sessions. [emphasis added]

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.