I am a former teacher specialising in teaching students diagnosed with Dyslexia, to use the Orton Gillingham method for reading. I now work as a Learning Support Co-ordinator and recently had the opportunity of observing our Reading Recovery teacher working with a student that I had referred.

When I first sat down with this student, he had very little phonological and phonemic awareness. His learning was inconsistent, and he was often unable to know letters and sounds from one day to the next. I was amazed at his progress. Previously he would avoid any literacy instruction and was developing some behaviours to get out of Literacy.

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Now this student has many tools in his Kete. He is able to decode unknown sounds and words thus reading bigger words. He now comprehends what he is reading and is able to add intonation while he reads. Probably the biggest achievement and the one that he is most proud of is his ability to write short stories.

Reading Recovery is such an excellent program to teach those that have difficulties with Literacy. While NZ is on a structured Literacy approach to teach reading, it would be fantastic if we could have more RR teachers in every school.