The Literacy Trust, Inc. 

Flexible implementation

          In the schools that first pioneered Reading Rescue, there were very few staff working outside of classrooms and so, in order to assure literacy for every child, first and second grade teachers volunteered to be trained and to make time in their day to tutor a child who would not otherwise reach grade level reading.

         Principals who pioneered the model were convinced that the knowledge and skill required to accelerate a struggling reader, once acquired and put to use in tutorials, would transfer into large and small groups to the benefit of all students - and indeed they were right. Obviously, there's unlikely to be an overall improvement in classroom teaching without the participation of classroom teachers.

          Some classroom teachers are able to organize their school day so that their students are actively engaged in worthwhile tasks as they tutor one child in the back of the room.  Reading Rescue consultants are available to confer with teachers to identify independent work for students that assures academic learning time - that portion of the school day which accounts for student achievement - is ongoing for the rest of the students as the teacher is tutoring. 

             In some schools, a paraprofessional is scheduled to enter the classroom as students begin independent work designed by the teacher (with help, if desired, from a Reading Rescue consultant) to assure their engagement with academic tasks as s/he tutors a failing student. As the teacher tutors, the paraprofessional circulates among the other students, monitoring their behavior and assisting individuals as necessary. In states where paraprofessionals are required to work in the presence of a teacher, the tutoring takes place in the back of the classroom; in other states, the teacher tutors at a desk or table immediately outside his or her classroom.

         However, in many schools, there are teaching assistants and paraprofessionals, as well as a few out-of-classroom teachers, who can be trained to tutor.  In many cases, with some scheduling changes, all the students who need tutoring can be served by these available out-of-classroom staff.

           In over 10 years of working with many different types of schools, various models for providing tutoring during the school have been successfully implemented. Reading Rescue consultants share these models with school principals and district administrators who request them as part of the technical assistance provided to schools.

The researchable question posed by the first Reading Rescue principal

      When the very first principal, Larrry Sullivan,  invited Nora L. Hoover, Ed.D. to train his staff to tutor during the school, explaining that he intended to "free up teachers and others" to rescue children failing to learn to read in small groups, Hoover wondered aloud what all the other children would be doing while staff tutored. She advised Sullivan that what he had in mind could result in reading achievement for some struggling students to the detriment of the majority. "Well", Nora, he responded, "That's a researchable question, isn't it?"  They didn't have to wait very long for for the answer. Allowing classroom teachers to tutor a struggling reader daily for 30 minutes while the other students worked independently resulted in an immediate, overall increase in first grade reading achievement.  And, in subsequent years, Interlachen's reading scores in the early grades on standardized tests were the highest in their county  although the school served the lowest socioeconomic population of students, including some who were bilingual. Years later Sullivan acknowledged that, from the start, he was convinced that there are tasks in every first grade that students need to be engaged in on a daily basis which do not require the presence of a certified teacher in front of the room - especially when there are students failing to read who need tutoring to succeed. Interlachen Elementary in the 1990's won two national Blue Ribbon awards and Sullivan has always been convinced that Reading Rescue was important to the school's success. No doubt, his  leadership played an even more important role. Long before the recent RtI legislation requiring all that schools meet the needs of struggling readers through a multi-tired intervention,  Sullivan pioneered an instructional delivery system that included both large and small group, as well as computer assisted instruction, and one-on-one, skilled tutoring for every struggling first and second grader in his school: 80 to 90 students each year. 

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