How Well is Reading Recovery Really Working in New Zealand? Reply to Chapman, Greaney and Tunmer

In the New Zealand Journal of Educational Studies Chapman, Greaney and Tunmer (2007) criticise a recent study of Reading Recovery (RR) carried out by the New Zealand Council for Educational Research for the New Zealand Ministry of Education (McDowall, Boyd, Hodgen & van Vliet, 2005) largely because it 'failed to examine the most important question, which is: are the specific procedures and instmctional strategies of the RR programme more effective for at-risk-readers than either doing nothing, or implementing some other one-to-one (or small group) tutoring programme?' (p.17). They also question the robustness of the methodology in relation to the study findings.