READING AND COMPREHENSION - A LONGITUDINAL-STUDY OF EX-READING RECOVERY STUDENTS

Tie paper reports the results of a longitudinal case study conducted i n Australia and New Zealand. The study compares the reading and compre hension age of children in their fifth and sixth years in school. Read ing and comprehension ages of 121 children who had Reading Recovery in tervention at age 6 were compared with those of a Comparison group of 121 children, drawn from the same classes who, at age 6 years, had bee n better performers in literacy. Reading and comprehension assessment was conducted with the use of the Neale Analysis of Reading and analys ed by means of a t-test. Results show that the mean reading age of ex- Reading Recovery children was nearly 12 months superior to that of the Comparison group and that the mean comprehension age was nearly 13 mo nths superior at very highly significant levels. The results strongly suggest that Reading Recovery tuition at age 6 years enabled the 121 e x-Reading Recovery children to make greater progress in literacy than children in the Comparison group.