Being a teacher in Reading Recovery is demanding, challenging and enormously rewarding.
“Right from the start I relished the enthusiasm and pace of the Reading Recovery training and the high expectations put on us at both initial and continuing professional development. I love that I am always learning and deepening my understanding and that we have the opportunity to discuss and clarify our thoughts with our highly supportive and inspirational teacher leaders…For me it ticks all the boxes of why I went into teaching in the first place and it has allowed me to reach those children that nothing else seemed to reach.”
Your first challenge will be to take the lowest attaining children, who have made virtually no progress in literacy in their first year at school, and within 12 to 20 weeks transform them into enthusiastic, able and independent readers and writers who will continue to learn as if they never had problems. Your second challenge is to change the way people in your school think about literacy teaching and learning, especially for disadvantaged children and those who struggle. This is therefore a job for qualified and experienced teachers.
How can I train as a Reading Recovery teacher?
The Initial Professional Development (IPD) course is internationally recognised and accredited by a university training site. The course is led by a Reading Recovery teacher leader. It is a part-time course spread across a full school year, and delivered locally at Reading Recovery centres in London, Bristol, Jersey, Kent, Manchester, Portsmouth, East Renfrewshire, Ireland and Malta. For more information about the training in the local Reading Recovery centres please contact the Teacher Leaders.
What does the course involve?
20 half day professional development sessions, with live lesson observation. The sessions will cover: • in-depth observation and assessment techniques; observation and discussion of live lessons; detailed analysis of teaching and learning; theoretical analysis;
• practical advice and guidance support for developing whole school impact. This includes learning about a range of literacy interventions to meet different needs;
• four support visits to your school. These provide intensive, individual support and help the school management team to develop an effective and efficient implementation.
• additional support via email or phone with the local Reading Recovery teacher leader;
• access to a secure, user friendly data system for monitoring and reporting to track the progress of children receiving literacy support and enable reports to support the strategic management of intervention and to provide accountability;
• one day of professional development for the intervention manager in your school. This includes learning about the reading and writing processes, and the effective use of assessment for early literacy;
• guidance on how to support parents. This enhances your confidence to work with parents, share details of their child’s learning, and to engage them with their child’s literacy.
The course will:
• develop your understanding of children’s learning and early literacy acquisition;
• learn skills to assess and overcome children’s literacy learning barriers;
• become reflective of teaching decisions and their impact on children’s learning in reading and writing;
• learn how to develop and use a gradient of challenge in text reading to support progress in reading; achieve accelerated progress in writing;
• be an expert for the school on diagnostic assessment of literacy;
• work with parents to understand and support their child’s development;
• monitor and assess the effectiveness of intervention,
and report impact in detail to support accountability processes.
How much does it cost?
The IPD course costs £2,940 (VAT free). On successful completion of the IPD course, you will be registered at the UCL Institute of Education as a qualified Reading Recovery teacher.
For as long as you are a Reading Recovery teacher, in order to remain accredited with the UCL Institute of Education you will need to attend the Continuing Professional Development (CPD) course delivered locally at Reading Recovery Centres.
Research demonstrates that sustained professional development which is closely linked to practice has a greater impact on teachers’ professional practice than short courses.
“The continuing professional training has enabled me to address the literacy needs at my school effectively and confidently. I would have never believed when I first started that I could deliver so much successful training to teachers and teaching assistants. It has been an enlightening experience that has given me a deeper understanding of how children learn, Reading Recovery teacher.”
What will the CPD course enable me to do?
• maintain accreditation as a Reading Recovery teacher; • deepen your knowledge of theories on early literacy acquisition;
• refine and extend your skills;
• critically examine teaching decisions in the light of children’s progress in reading and writing;
• contribute to school improvement priorities and quality first teaching through: support for mentoring; • coaching; and leading professional development;
• learn how to make more extensive use of data analysis to strengthen literacy provision in your school;
• undertake cyclical needs analysis and draw upon a range of approaches to meet the needs of all learners.
What does the CPD programme involve?
• six high level professional development sessions, with live lesson observation. The sessions will deepen and refine critical examination of teaching decisions;
access to a secure, user friendly data system for monitoring and reporting. This enables you to track the progress of children receiving literacy support. You will also be able to generate reports to support the strategic management of intervention and to provide accountability;
• one support visit to your school. This provides intensive, individual support to help you address the specific needs of an individual child. It helps build on an effective and efficient implementation. Additional support via email or phone with the local Reading Recovery teacher leader;
• support for developing whole school impact. This includes: learning how to assess and evaluate a range of interventions to determine their value to the school strategy for literacy; • access to opportunities for training in a range of literacy interventions (the costs of such training will be separate); • using the monitoring and reporting system to assess the impact of all literacy interventions used by the school;
guidance on how to support parents. This enhances your confidence to work with parents, share details of their child’s learning, and to engage them with their child’s literacy.
How much does CPD cost?
The CPD course costs £1,144 (VAT free).