What is Reading Recovery®

Reading Recovery is a short-term intervention for first graders having extreme difficulty with early reading and writing. Specially trained teachers work individually with students in daily 30-minute lessons lasting 12 to 20 weeks. After a full series of lessons, about 75% of these formerly lowest students reach grade-level standard.

Reading Recovery at Clemson University

The Clemson University Reading Recovery Training Center for South Carolina serves the state by providing training and ongoing professional development for Reading Recovery and primary grade classroom teachers in the area of early literacy assessment and instructional strategies and the teaching of struggling readers and writers.

C.C. Bates, Ph.D., is an assistant professor of reading education and director of the Reading Recovery UTC. She spent 2009–2010 completing a year of postdoctoral study at the Ohio State University readying herself to serve as Clemson’s Reading Recovery university trainer. Her study involved course work in reading theory, leadership and teaching. The teaching portion of her postdoctoral work was in conjunction with Georgia State University, where Bates received her doctorate in 2004.

Dr. Bates began her career in education as a kindergarten and first-grade teacher. Her dissertation, which examined the contextual elements in a first-grade classroom and their influence on literacy learning, was given the Outstanding Dissertation Award by the College of Education at Georgia State University. Bates’ work with Reading Recovery has stimulated her interest in the transitions and continuity between the general education classroom and the supplemental services children are provided.

Other members of Clemson’s UTC are Bill Fisk, site coordinator; Flo Thornton-Reid, trainer; Maryann McBride, teacher leader; Kathleen Grant, program coordinator; and Jennifer Horace, graduate assistant.

Reading Recovery Advisory Council

The mission of the RRAC is to form a partnership and foster communication between the State Department of Education (SCDE), the Reading Recovery University Training Center at Clemson University (UTC), school district and university personnel, community members, and other state agencies to coordinate efforts to support RR implementation in school districts around the state, support the Reading Recovery training, and to recognize excellence in the school districts. The RRAC serves as an advocacy group for Reading Recovery in South Carolina.