Critics deride new literacy program as ‘joke’
Posted Apr 27, 2011 06:04:21 AM.
This article is more than 5 years old.
The province has revealed its plans for a new program that will replace the Reading Recovery initiative for young students – and critics say it’s a step backwards.
The education minister says “Succeeding in Reading” will help more students while saving money.
The new early reading support will be introduced in Primary and Grade 1 but will include help for pupils in grades 2 and 3. Literacy instructors will work with students in small groups of up to three, but could still work one-on-one.
Former educator Rob Morris, who brought the original – and highly popular – Reading Recovery program to Nova Scotia says the replacement won’t work.
“Reading Recovery was an answer to what we’re now going to enter by this approach, this framework that has now been suggested,” says former educator Rob Morris. “It’s almost an exact repeat of what we were going through in the 80s.”
Liberal education critic Karen Casey says she’d asked the education minister to reconsider the elimination of Reading Recovery and says the new program is a joke.
“It’s called a ‘framework,'” she tells the Rick Howe Show. “There’s no detail in it, there’s nothing concrete in it. There’s nothing about what resources and materials will be used. The focus is on cooperation and collaboration among teachers, and teachers have been doing that for years.”
The government says the new program will help schools to more quickly identify those who need help with speaking, reading and writing.
But Morris says the loss of individual instruction in particular will have a significant impact on the success of the new program.
“It’s just a waste of children’s abilities,” he said. “Yes, you’ll get support given to children, but support doesn’t lead to independence.”
Casey points out the new program – at a cost of $5 million – doesn’t even provide significant savings compared to Reading Recovery, which cost $7 million a year.
“There were no savings, absolutely no savings,” she said. “I guarantee that we should be looking not at dollars and cents, but the young kids who will be saved or lost depending on what we do in Grade 1 to help them learn to read.”
Morris says Reading Recovery, introduced in 1987, had outstanding results and is a crucial part of the education system.
“I’m afraid we’ve got a generation that we might lose now for a while,” he said. “Hopefully, with a change in government, we’ll get back in.”
Succeeding in Reading is expected to launch in September.
