"I thought I knew how to teach young people how to read until I trained in Reading Recovery," Reading Recovery teacher.
Want to find your local teacher leader? Search for the nearest Reading Recovery centre to you.
Becoming a Reading Recovery teacher
To become a Reading Recovery teacher you need to fulfil the essential requirements, as well as have local authority and school backing. To see if your local authority supports Reading Recovery and to find out which schools will be offering Reading Recovery next year, please contact the teacher leader nearest to you.
Training
Training as a teacher requires participation in an accredited Reading Recovery professional development programme taught by a qualified teacher leader, part-time for a full academic year. The professional development programme is an internationally recognised qualification.
Teachers in training need to:
- Attend four assessment training sessions to learn how to administer and score Observation Survey and to identify children for Reading Recovery
- Attend 18 in-service training sessions
- Teach a child at a professional development session at least twice during the training year
- Make and receive one colleague visit (for which training is given)
- Teach a minimum of four children, in the required age range 5.9-6.3, individually for 30 minutes daily in a school setting
- Receive four-to-six school visits from a teacher leader for guidance and clarification of appropriate procedures
- Communicate with school personnel and parents of children
- Maintain careful records on each child as a basis for instruction
- Submit data to the annual monitoring process
On successful completion of the professional development programme, the teacher is registered at the Institute of Education as a qualified Reading Recovery teacher. Reading Recovery teachers receive further professional development through a minimum of six Continuing Contact sessions each year, and annual teacher leader and colleague visits for as long as they are teaching Reading Recovery.
Further education
Advanced educational practice programme
This module is for teachers who have successfully completed the Reading Recovery professional development programme. Teachers submit records collected during the Reading Recovery course and, with some additional study, write an account of children's development in literacy during their series of Reading Recovery lessons.
Teachers who successfully complete this module will be awarded 30 credits at Master level, as part of the Advanced Educational Practice Programme at the Institute of Education. The credits may be used within the AEP programme towards a Master's degree or may be transferred to another award elsewhere (e.g. local Higher Education institutions or the Open University, as the credit-transfer scheme operates nationwide). For further information visit the Institute of Educations MA Advanced Educational Practice.
Reading Recovery in Primary Literacy Leadership (RRiPLLe)
This module will equip Reading Recovery trained teachers to use their expertise more widely and extend their support for literacy teaching across the school. It provides participants with practical skills and theoretical understanding necessary to support the literacy curriculum in Foundation stage, Key Stage one and for slow learning children in Key Stage two. This module requires you to have a Reading Recovery teacher qualification. Students who successfully complete this module will be awarded 30 credits at Master's level. This module is taught by trained Reading Recovery teacher leaders and is provided by the local authority (although it is managed and accredited by the Institute of Education). Please contact your local Reading Recovery teacher leader for more information.