Bridges to Literacy: Learning from Reading Recovery

In 1984, Carol Lyons and Diane DeFord joined the team of Charlotte Huck and Gay Su Pinnell in a new venture: implementing Reading Recovery as a small pilot project in Columbus, Ohio. Ever since that time, they have been on a fascinating "transitional" journey, seeking to make connections between their previous beliefs and understandings about children and teachers as learners and readers, and new insights they were having through their work with teachers and children. This book is entitled Bridges to Literacy because it attempts to represent the routes, or bridges, the authors have formed between two adjacent ideas: one-on one instruction and classroom instruction.

One question they are often asked about Reading Recovery is "Why can't it be done in groups?" Reading Recovery was designed by Marie Clay and her colleagues to solve a problem they were having in excellent classroom environments. Some children were not engaging in the classroom demonstrations these teachers were devising; they needed finely tuned, one-on-one instruction from "noticing" teachers who could follow their every move to confirm and lead them into building a firm knowledge base about strategies in reading. However, many of the procedures and materials used in Reading Recovery are based on good instructional techniques that classroom teachers may use with groups of children.

Diane E. DeFord associate professor, Educational Theory and Practice, Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio. Diane teaches courses on reading and writing methods and evaluation in addition to co-directing the Reading Recovery program for the state of Ohio.

Gay Su Pinnell is a professor in the School of Teaching and Learning at The Ohio State University. She has extensive experience in classroom teaching and field-based research, and in developing comprehensive approaches to literacy education. She has received the International Reading Association's Albert J. Harris Award for research and the Charles A. Dana Foundation Award for her contributions to the field of education. She is also a member of the Reading Hall of Fame. Together with Irene Fountas she has authored numerous books, videos, and websites with Heinemann that are considered standards in the field of literacy instruction and staff development. Their latest innovations are The Fountas & Pinnell Leveled Literacy Intervention and The Fountas & Pinnell Benchmark Assessment System, a comprehensive assessment system for grades K-8. Fountas and Pinnell have influenced the classroom practices of teachers nationwide through bestselling titles such as: The Fountas & Pinnell Prompting Guide 1 (2008) When Readers Struggle (2008) The Fountas & Pinnell Leveled Book List, K-8+ (2009-2011 Edition, Print Version) The Continuum of Literacy Learning, Grades K-8 (2007) The Continuum of Literacy Learning, Grades K-2 (2007) The Continuum of Literacy Learning, Grades 3-8 (2007) Teaching for Comprehending and Fluency: Thinking, Talking, and Writing About Reading, K-8 (2006) www.FountasandPinnellLeveledBooks.com Leveled Books, K-8: Matching Texts to Readers for Effective Teaching (2005) Guided Reading: Good First Teaching for All Children (1996) Guiding Readers and Writers: Teaching Comprehension, Genre, and Content Literacy (2001) Interactive Writing: How Language & Literacy Come Together, K-2 (2000) The Primary Literacy Video Collection Series of DVDs: Guided Reading; Classroom Management; and Word Study (2006) Word Matters: Teaching Phonics and Spelling in the Reading/Writing Classroom (1998) The Reader's Notebook Help America Read and Coordinator's Guide (1997) In addition, through Heinemann's firsthand line of classroom materials, Fountas and Pinnell have authored Phonics Lessons (Grades K, 1, and 2), Word Study Lessons (Grade 3), Sing a Song of Poetry, and their corresponding word and picture cards. These materials are used in thousands of classrooms throughout the country. Fountas and Pinnell together present workshops nationwide on a variety of literacy-instruction topics through Heinemann Professional Development.

Carol Lyons is Professor Emeritus at The Ohio State University, where she teaches graduate courses in reading, learning and cognition, and professional development courses for university and district-level trainers in Reading Recovery and the Literacy Collaborative. For the past twenty years, she has conducted research and published numerous articles and book chapters on teacher thinking/learning and practice, reading, and learning/reading disability. Lyons is coauthor (with Gay Su Pinnell and Diane DeFord) of Partners in Learning: Teachers and Children in Reading Recovery and coeditor (with Diane DeFord and Gay Su Pinnell) of Bridges to Literacy: Learning from Reading Recovery, which is published by Heinemann.