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THE IMPACT OFREADING RECOVERYPARTICIPATION ONSTUDENTS' SELF-CONCEPTSWill Rumbaugh, Carvin BrownPublished online: 30 Nov 2010.
To cite this article: Will Rumbaugh, Carvin Brown (2000) THEIMPACT OF READING RECOVERY PARTICIPATION ON STUDENTS'SELF-CONCEPTS, Reading Psychology, 21:1, 13-30, DOI:10.1080/027027100278329
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THE IMPACT OF READING RECOVERY PARTICIPATIONON STUDENTS’ SELF-CONCEPTS
Reading Psychology, 21:13–30, 2000Copyright © 2000 Taylor & Francis0270–2711/00 $12.00 + .00
Address correspondence to Will Rumbaugh, 308 Stewart Avenue, Marietta, GA 30064.E-mail: [email protected]
WILL RUMBAUGH
Douglas County School System, Douglasville, Georgia
CARVIN BROWN
The University of Georgia, Athens, Georgia
The present study was undertaken to determine the effects of Reading Recoveryparticipation on students’ self-concepts. The 103 participants in the study werestudents from three metropolitan Atlanta school districts in nine elementar yschools. The results of the investigation revealed statistically significant differencesin the adjusted posttest means of Global Self-Concept scores and Significancedimension scores on the Joseph Pre-School and Primary Self-Concept ScreeningTest with treatment students scoring higher than control students. There was nostatistically significant difference in the adjusted posttest means of the Competencedimension scores between the Reading Recovery participants and the controlstudents.
Reading instruction is the most crucial task demanded of U.S. elemen-tary schools; however, this charge is not being fully accomplished.According to Merina (1995), there are 40 million functional illiteratesin the United States. For these 40 million adults, elementary schoolshave failed to meet their foundational demand.
The results of this deprivation are damage to personal lives andto society. Illiterate individuals suffer from frustration, limitedincome-generating potential, restrictions on contributions madeto others, and constricted potential for self-actualization. An illit-erate society suffers from an uninformed voting citizenry, unwiseconsumerism, a failure of members to understand themselves andtheir neighbors, and an inadequate workforce. For example, Reese(1996) reported that “virtually all chief executives [of Fortune 500companies] agree that workers’ literacy levels affect productivity
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and profitability” (p. 14). The U.S. Department of Labor estimatedthat illiteracy costs American businesses $225 billion annually inlost productivity (Reese, 1996). Furthermore, Shanahan and Barr(1995) suggested that illiteracy in the U.S. is married to crime,unemployment or underemployment, poor health practices, anda disregard for civic duty.
In order to avert these personal and societal ills related to illit-eracy, many school districts have employed a promising innovationimported from New Zealand. This program, called ReadingRecovery, is conceptualized as a multidimensional approach to read-ing instruction: It attempts to meet the needs of a district, its teachers,and the students, and it utilizes diverse instructional theories andtechniques to accelerate individual student reading ability. Al-though there are many dimensions to the reading remedy, leadingproponents have collaborated to offer a concise definition of Read-ing Recovery. According to Lyons, Pinnell, and DeFord (1993),Reading Recovery is a “system-wide intervention that involves a net-work of education, communication, and collegiality to create a cul-ture of learning that promotes literacy for high-risk children” (p. 2).
Background
Reading Recovery focuses its efforts on three levels. At the firstlevel, it assists school districts in improving the delivery of readinginstruction to its lower achieving readers. “A Reading Recoveryproject,” claimed Pinnell (1990), “is a system intervention . . . whichrequires commitment, training, continuing inservice, and data col-lection” (p. 18). In order for districts to create formal, effective struc-tures to deliver Reading Recovery to their at-risk readers, it isimperative that the staff is well-trained and highly capable. There-fore, Reading Recovery has a strong component of staffdevelopment—the second level. According to Lyons (1993), “Help-ing teachers understand and learn how to develop and constructpedagogical knowledge grounded in an understanding of how chil-dren think and learn is necessary if we are to begin to reduce thenumber of children who fail to learn how to read in the first grade”(p. 327). The third, and most prominent, level of Reading Recov-ery is student intervention. It is at this student intervention tierwhere the formal, systemic implementation and the thorough staffdevelopment pay academic dividends.
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Reading Recovery and Students’ Self-Concepts 15
Reading Recovery, the formal system-wide training structure withits intensive and extensive staff development and student inter-ventions, has been the subject of much commentary and study forthe past 10 years. The amount of research affiliated with the pro-gram is a testimony to its importance in the development of read-ing instruction in the U.S. Generally, the research efforts emphasizeeither the gains made by Reading Recovery, the maintenance ofthe gains, the program’s cost-effectiveness, or its systemic benefits.
Shanahan and Barr (1995) completed a thorough evaluation ofthe research conducted on Reading Recovery gains. According totheir investigation, Reading Recovery does accelerate its studentsin their acquisition of reading strategies, in their phonemic aware-ness, and in their spelling skills. In fact, average Reading Recoverystudents make dramatic progress as a result of the program; theparticipants in Reading Recovery “learned 15.71 letter names;improved per formance on the word reading test by 13.24preprimer words; improved on the concepts of print test by 8.73print awareness features; wrote 31.44 more words; represented24.86 more phonemes accurately in dictations; and moved through9.0 levels of text material” (Shanahan & Barr, 1995, p. 966). Theresearchers concluded, therefore, that Reading Recovery gener-ally works for the students completing the program. It does not,however, work for all students (i.e., for the 10% to 30% of thestudents failing to complete the program).
Studying the maintenance of gains, Wasik and Slavin (1993)conducted two longitudinal studies in Columbus, Ohio, involvinga total of 18 schools. They found that Reading Recovery students,upon initial completion of the program, consistently performedbetter than control students (low-achievers not receiving ReadingRecovery instruction) on all measures except letter identificationand word recognition, which apparently has a score ceiling. Thestudents were then administered the test for text reading level atthe end of grade two and grade three (two and then three yearssubsequent to program participation). The researchers discoveredthat the statistical difference remained between the two groups.The Reading Recovery students continued to perform at the aver-age level of their originating classes.
Wasik and Slavin (1993) maintained that “the effects of Read-ing Recovery are impressive at the end of the implementation year,and the effects are maintained for at least 2 years” (p. 187).
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Shanahan and Barr (1995) qualified such results. They disclosedthat the continued effectiveness of Reading Recovery is determinedby the type and quality of instruction the Reading Recovery stu-dents receive following their discontinuation.
The debate continues concerning the costs and cost-effectivenessof Reading Recovery. Researchers have employed different formu-lae and models to determine the intervention’s per-pupil cost, andthey have devised widely divergent price tags associated with Read-ing Recovery implementation: Lyons and Beaver (1995) stated thatit costs $1,708 per Reading Recovery student; Dyer (1992) claimedit takes $2,063 for a student to participate in the program;Shanahan and Barr (1995) suggested $4,625 is required; andHiebert (1994) purported that it takes $8,333 to take a studentthrough the average Reading Recovery instructional cycle.
Not only are there differing opinions concerning Reading Re-covery costs, there are also a wide variety of sentiments about itscost-effectiveness. Some commentators believe Reading Recoveryis definitely worth its price. For instance, Dr. John Sondecker, As-sistant Superintendent of Arlington City Schools, declared that“Reading Recovery has had a positive effect on our entire educa-tional system . . . teachers, parents, and children. It has been thecatalyst for unifying our instructional support programs and pro-moted school wide reforms. It is definitely a cost-effective preventiveintervention program that our school district cannot afford to dowithout” (Lyons & Beaver, 1995, p. 134). Others remain unsureabout Reading Recovery’s cost-effectiveness. For example,Shanahan and Barr (1995) speculated, given the fact of limitedresources in school districts, if it “is better to make a massive in-vestment early, or to allocate resources more equitably to providesupport at various stages of schooling” (p. 978). Yet others claimthat the cost of the program is irrelevant. Hiebert (1994), for in-stance, suggested that “a price tag is difficult to place on proficientliteracy for either an individual or society” (p. 15).
Because many have shown that Reading Recovery does acceler-ate about two-thirds of its participants (e.g., Shanahan & Barr, 1995),and because these students are able to maintain gains given effec-tive subsequent instruction, some researchers have sought to dis-cover other benefits accrued by Reading Recovery that might lendevidence to the cost-effectiveness debate. Lyons (1991) found thatReading Recovery has an effect on reading behaviors of at-risk
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Reading Recovery and Students’ Self-Concepts 17
readers and on the prevention of particular learning disabilities.In addition, studies by Wasik and Slavin (1993) and Lyons andBeaver (1995) established that Reading Recovery implementationin a school system reduces retention rates and special education re-ferrals. Furthermore, Moore and Wade (1993) studied the attitudestoward Reading Recovery by principals, teachers, parents, and stu-dents. They pronounced that Reading Recovery implementationleads to gains in parental involvement, a growing prominence ofreading in homes, and a growing sense of confidence on the partof participants about their reading abilities.
Improved self-concepts, a conceivable systemic benefit accruedfrom Reading Recovery participation, has been the focus of threeprevious studies. Cohen, McDonell, and Osborn (1989) studied138 first-grade students from an upper-middle class school districtoutside of Washington, D.C. Using two moderately reliable andconsistent instruments they devised themselves (an attribution scaleand a self-efficacy scale), the researchers found that Reading Re-covery students believed they were more capable of completingdifferent reading and writing activities than other at-risk studentsin traditional remedial programs. Furthermore, the Reading Re-covery students believed themselves to be competent and in con-trol of their own learning. The researchers imply that ReadingRecovery halts a downward spiral of defeatism and despair, reversesthe cycle, and creates a series of successes leading to improvedself-esteem.
A later Reading Recovery self-concept study was completed byTraynelis-Yurek and Hansell (1993). In their investigation, 173 first-grade students were chosen from a mixture of urban, suburban,and rural schools in Ohio and Virginia. Following their participa-tion in the Reading Recovery program, these students were givena questionnaire that measured how they felt about their own read-ing abilities and how they felt others assessed their reading skills.According to Traynelis-Yurek and Hansell, Reading Recovery “stu-dents responded yes 144 times when asked if their classroom teacherthought they were reading better, 153 times when asked if theythemselves thought they were reading better, and 166 times whenthey thought the tutor thought they were reading better” (p. 142).
The findings from these two studies suggest that students whoparticipate in Reading Recovery experience gains in self-concept.The latest analysis, however, did not find such gains for Reading
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Recovery participants. Wilson, Chapman, and Tunmer (1995) in-vestigated the reading self-concepts of poor readers after one yearof school, and they examined whether Reading Recovery partici-pation significantly improved the reading self-concepts of the at-risk readers. Fifty-two students from 22 elementary schools in alarge New Zealand city participated in the study. Two groups wereformed: 26 students who participated in Reading Recovery treat-ment, and 26 adept six-year-old readers. The Reading Self-ConceptScale, developed by Chapman and Tunmer, was administered tothe Reading Recovery students before the program began andagain when they were discontinued. The competent readers wereadministered the same test at approximately the same time period.According to Wilson et al. (1995), “Significant improvements inreading self-concept did not occur for children with reading diffi-culties following completion of the Reading Recovery program”(p. 40).
Self-concept is an intricate construct; however, there are fourbasic assumptions concerning self-concept that served as the foun-dation for the present study. Although there is not universal agree-ment on the definition of terms, the first premise is that a generalconsensus has been slowly built that self-concept is divided intotwo main domains. Self-concept can be viewed as the worth orvalue people attach to themselves (an affective approach). Joseph(1979) designated this domain as significance, or “the extent towhich [people] . . . perceive [themselves] . . . as being valued bysignificant others” (p. 8). Additionally, self-concept can be viewedas the judgments people make about their abilities to comprehendand manipulate their environment (a cognitive approach). Accord-ing to Joseph (1979), these judgments form the domain known ascompetence, or “the perception of being able to successfully per-form and master environmental demands” (p. 8). Together, thetwo domains comprise global self-concept, or “the way an indi-vidual perceives himself, his behaviors, how others view him, andthe feelings of personal worth and satisfaction that are attached tothese perceptions” (Joseph, 1979, p. 8).
The second premise upon which the present study is founded isthat the construct of self-concept has undergone an historical ref-ormation and possesses a unique, contemporary meaning. Thatis, self-concept has been transformed from a transcendent con-struct (in antiquity) to a deconstructed model (with Decartes) to a
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Reading Recovery and Students’ Self-Concepts 19
neglected notion (with the dominance of the Behaviorists) to anintegrated, unidimensional entity (with Stanley Coopersmith). Atthe present, self-concept is generally thought of as a multifaceted,multidimensional construct.
Concurrent with the multifaceted, multidimensional view, thethird supposition is that self-concept is developmental. Shavelson,Hubner, and Stanton (1976) proposed that children have global,undifferentiated, and context-specific self-concepts. However, asthey begin to be able to give verbal labels to their experiences,their self-concepts become increasingly abstract and hierarchical.
The fourth supposition is that there are emerging correlates toself-concept. One relevant association that receives great attentionis between self-concept and academic achievement. Hoge, Smit,and Crist (1995) claimed that “the majority of the studies [con-ducted in this area] have found positive correlations between self-concept and academic achievement” (p. 295).
Self-concept also affects or is affected by reading achievement(the causal relationship between academics and self-concept is, atthis time, unclear). According to Heathington (1980), readingaffects all stages and phases of a person’s life. Reading self-conceptis affected by interactions with significant others, by reading suc-cesses or failures, and by the materials chosen to read. Heathingtoncontends that children seek to imitate the reading activity becauseit is seen as an adult endeavor and because it is viewed as a way toget and share ideas with others. Failure to develop reading abilitieshas significant negative consequences. Schell (1992), in seeking todiscover how reading achievement affects social and personal viewsof peers on grades one through six, found that there are significantdifferences in student perceptions of good and poor readers. Bothgenders view poor readers negatively. Also, despite the readinggroup to which a respondent is affiliated, poor readers are viewedin a more negative light than are good readers. According to Schell,“Poor readers are clearly viewed as having far more negative per-sonal and social traits than are good readers, no matter the gradelevel, the gender, or self-reported group assignment” (p. 24).
Method
The present study’s aim was to determine if a systemic benefit,such as self-concept, accompanies Reading Recovery participation.
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Furthermore, its goal was to glean the source of gains made, if any,in self-concept. The purpose of the study, therefore, was to investi-gate whether Reading Recovery has a significant impact on its par-ticipants’ self-concept and its two main domains.
The following research questions were posed:
1. Does participation in Reading Recovery significantly affect stu-dents’ self-concept?
2. If Reading Recovery participation does significantly affect self-concept, is it due to the additional attention, or significance,students receive for several months (i.e., is it due to affectivefactors)?
3. Or, if Reading Recovery participation does significantly affectself-concept, is it due to the gained independence, or compe-tence, students experience in their reading abilities (i.e., is itdue to cognitive factors)?
Participants
Several criteria were established for participant selection: The stu-dents had to be in the first grade (i.e., six years old); the studentscould not have been retained in kindergarten or first grade; theprimary language of the participants had to be English; and thestudents could not have been enrolled in special education or inany reading intervention program other than Reading Recovery.Nine elementary schools in the metropolitan Atlanta area servedas pools from which the participants were selected.
One hundred and three students were chosen to participate inthe study. Students receiving Reading Recovery services comprisedthe treatment group. Reading Recovery participation was deter-mined during the first week of the school year. In the nine collab-orating schools, the first-grade teachers ranked their studentsaccording to reading ability by identifying their class’s best reader,the poorest reader, the second-best reader, the second-poorestreader, etc. The Reading Recovery teachers then administeredMarie Clay’s (1993) diagnostic measure, the Observation Survey,to the students who fell in the bottom 20% of their class’s ranking.The scores from the Observation Survey were used to selectstudents from the lowest 20% of each class for Reading Recoveryparticipation.
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Reading Recovery and Students’ Self-Concepts 21
The Observation Survey was used in order to avoid teachers’tendencies to suggest students for the Reading Recovery programwho they thought would most benefit from remedial work, ratherthan recommending students who were the lowest achievers (it isthese lowest achievers who are the explicit targets for ReadingRecovery). The Observation Survey test contains seven compo-nents: (a) text reading, (b) writing, (c) word recognition, (d) let-ter identification, (e) print conventions, (f) vocabulary, and (g)phoneme recognition. At the completion of the testing, the Read-ing Recovery teachers have a more complete understanding ofthe students’ present reading levels and abilities, the particularproblems that need to be corrected throughout the program, andhow far the students must be accelerated in order to enter theranks of the average readers in their originating class.
The treatment group, therefore, was comprised of 57 studentsfrom nine elementary schools who were found, despite a year offormal education, (a) to be able to recognize few, if any, letters,phonemes, or words; (b) to be unable to follow the conventionsof print; (c) to read at significantly low text reading levels; and (d)to be poor writers. The students in the control group, to the contrary,possessed diverse reading and writing abilities, were not selected forenrollment in any reading intervention programs, and originatedfrom a single elementary school. However, the 46 students consti-tuting the control group, similar to the students in the treatmentgroup, were in the first grade, had not been retained, spoke Englishas their primary language, and were not enrolled in special education.
Of the 103 students participating in the study, 51% were malesand 49% were females. The control group was comprised of 19males and 27 females, and the treatment group was comprised of34 males and 23 females. In the total study, 64 students were Afri-can American (62%), 35 were Caucasian (34%), two were Hispanic(2%), and two were Asian (2%). In the control group, 36 studentswere African American, 8 were Caucasian, one was Hispanic, andone was Asian. In the treatment group, 28 students were AfricanAmerican, 27 were Caucasian, one was Hispanic, and one was Asian.
Procedure
The participants were divided into two groups. The treatmentgroup of 57 students received Reading Recovery instruction for
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12 weeks. All Reading Recovery teachers participated in a formalyear-long training process to develop their skills. Their training be-gan in the summer with a 30-hour workshop. Then, during the aca-demic year, the teachers met weekly for a three-hour session. At theend of their training year, the Reading Recovery teachers possessedan abundance of knowledge of the reading process, and they wereproficient at applying their knowledge in the teaching of students.
The second group, the 46 control students, received no ReadingRecovery instruction and no other reading intervention duringthe same 12 week period. These students originated from five dif-ferent first-grade classrooms at one elementary school. The teach-ers’ levels of experience varied widely, from a second-year teacherto a teacher who had taught first-grade for nearly 20 years. Never-theless, the emphases from this first-grade team of teachers wereuniform. In the 90-minute language arts block, students receivedbalanced reading instruction, with a focus on flexible guided read-ing groups, writers’ workshop, sustained silent reading, and explicitdecoding instruction.
All of the 103 participants were administered the pretest, theJoseph Pre-School and Primary Self-Concept Screening Test(JPPSST), in early September 1997 before Reading Recovery ser-vices began for the school year. The 103 participants were thenadministered the posttest, the JPPSST, in mid-December 1997,twelve weeks after the Reading Recovery program ensued for thetreatment group.
Instrumentation
One instrument was employed for this study: the JPPSST devel-oped by psychologist Jack Joseph in 1979. The JPPSST is an indi-vidually-administered, forced-choice, 15-question (dichotomous),five- to seven-minute measurement. Global Self-Concept is evalu-ated, and also two of its major dimensions—Competence and Sig-nificance—and three minor, supporting sub-dimensions—Power,Contentment, and Virtue. The JPPSST is used to screen for high-risk students, predict academic success, assess emotional and so-cial growth, diagnose the effectiveness of school programs, and toprovide special education programs with valuable data.
The test was built upon a sound theoretical foundation, and itstest items were developed so that they could be understood byyoung children (no reading knowledge or speech abilities are re-
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Reading Recovery and Students’ Self-Concepts 23
quired and the test items reflect the experiences of any child). Inaddition to a solid theoretical underpinning, Joseph providedample evidence of JPPSST’s reliability and validity. The JPPSSTprovides an effective balance by being consistent, while also pos-sessing a wide item-popularity variance (ranging from 2% to 48%for different test items) and a wide item-discrimination variance(the coefficients range from the 0.30s to the 0.70s). Cathy FultzTelzrow (1985), Coordinator for Program Development atCuyahoga Special Education Center in Ohio, summarized Joseph’stest by suggesting that “the JPPSST may represent one of the bestchild-interview self-concept measures available. The test is foundedin self-concept theory and reports favorable reliability and validityresults” (p. 765). Byrne (1996) concurred with Telzrow, claimingthat “of the 15 preschool measures found through the literaturesearch, the Joseph Pre-School and Primary Self-Concept Screen-ing Test . . . and the Pictorial Scale of Perceived Competence andSocial Acceptance . . . were considered to be the most psychometri-cally adequate for use with this young population [ages three toseven years]” (p. 69).
The JPPSST has 15 dichotomous questions. Each question yieldsa score of two or zero (or one when the respondent cannot decideor wishes to choose both answers). The total score, with a maxi-mum of 30 and a minimum of zero, comprises the Global Self-Concept score. Seven of the 15 questions on the JPPSST are relatedto the Significance domain of self-concept (questions 2, 3, 4, 5, 6,12, and 13), yielding a maximum Significance score of 14 and aminimum score of 0. Six of the 15 questions on the JPPSST arerelated to the Competence domain of self-concept (questions 6,7, 8, 10, 11, and 12), yielding a maximum Competence score of 12and a minimum score of 0. At the conclusion of the pretest andposttest, the following data were collected for each of the 103 par-ticipants: group (treatment or control), race, gender, Global Self-Concept pretest score, Significance pretest score, Competencepretest score, Global Self-concept posttest score, Significanceposttest score, and Competence posttest score.
Results
The following null hypotheses were formulated from the researchquestions. The hypotheses were created to ascertain ReadingRecovery’s effects on Global Self-Concept and its two major do-mains, Significance and Competence.
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Ho: 1 There is no statistically significant difference in the adjustedposttest means of Global Self-Concept scores on the JPPSSTbetween high-risk students who have participated in the Read-ing Recovery program and students who have not.
Ho: 2 There is no statistically significant difference in the adjustedposttest means for the Significance dimension scores on theJPPSST between high-risk students who have participated in theReading Recovery program and students who have not.
Ho: 3 There is no statistically significant difference in the adjustedposttest means for the Competence dimension scores on theJPPSST between high-risk students who have participated in theReading Recovery program and students who have not.
Table 1 displays the means and standard deviations for thepretest and posttest results for the control and treatment groups.
TABLE 1 JPPSST Global Self-Concept, SignificanceDomain, and Competence Domain Pretest andPosttest Means and Standard Deviations
Test Control Treatment
Global Self-ConceptPretestM 28.07 25.89SD 1.88 3.21
PosttestM 28.78 27.25SD 1.36 2.81
Significance DomainPretestM 12.91 11.70SD 1.33 1.77
PosttestM 13.63 12.67SD 0.85 1.70
Competence DomainPretestM 11.57 11.21SD 1.03 1.29
PosttestM 11.74 11.44SD 0.77 1.50
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Reading Recovery and Students’ Self-Concepts 25
Table 2 presents the adjusted means for the JPPSST Global Self-Concept, Significance domain, and Competence domain scores.
The results of the quasi-experimental, causal-comparative study(organized as a two-group pretest, posttest design) were evaluatedusing an analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) with initial conditionresults (the pretest) used as the covariate and the group (controland treatment) used as the independent variable. ANCOVA al-lowed the control and treatment groups to be equalized with re-spect to the pretest, or control variable, so that adjusted posttestscores could be compared. Results of the ANCOVA proceduresare exhibited in Tables 3, 4, and 5. The study was not exploratoryin nature (allowing for a more liberal alpha level), and it was notdeemed to be critical to students’ lives or catastrophic in its conse-quences. Therefore, this study employed the traditional alpha levelof .05 to test the hypotheses.
The F-values of 4.51 and 6.33 indicate that there are statisticallysignificant differences at the .05 alpha level (p < .05) in the ad-justed posttest means of Global Self-Concept and Significancedomain scores on the JPPSST between high-risk students who par-ticipated in the Reading Recovery program and students who did
TABLE 2 Adjusted Means for Global Self-Concept, Significance Domain,and Competence Domain Scores on the JPPSST
Group Pretest Mean Posttest Mean Adjusted Mean
Global Self-ConceptControl 28.07 28.78 28.48Treatment 25.89 27.25 27.48
Significance DomainControl 12.91 13.63 13.50Treatment 11.70 12.67 12.77
Competence DomainControl 11.57 11.74 11.69Treatment 11.21 11.44 11.48
TABLE 3 Difference Between Adjusted Global Self-Concept Means
Source df SS MS F p
Adjusted Means 1 21.69 21.69 4.51 < .05Error 100 480.71 4.81
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26 W. Rumbaugh and C. Brown
not. Therefore, the first and second null hypotheses were rejected.The F-value of 0.72 indicates that there is no statistically significantdifference in the adjusted posttest means of Competence domainscores on the JPPSST between high-risk students who participatedin the Reading Recovery program and students who did not.
Three questions were posed at the beginning of the study toguide the investigation. Each of the questions is answered below:
1. Participation in Reading Recovery does affect students’ GlobalSelf-Concepts.
2. The meaningful effect of Reading Recovery participation onstudents’ self-concepts is related to the additional attention, orSignificance, students receive for several months (i.e., it is dueto affective factors).
3. The initial meaningful effect of Reading Recovery participa-tion on students’ self-concepts is not due to the gained inde-pendence, or Competence, students experience in their readingabilities (i.e., it is not due, after 12 weeks, to cognitive factors).
As a result of Reading Recovery participation, each student madesignificantly positive gains in Global Self-Concept, in the “theway . . . [he] perceives himself, his behaviors, how others view him,and the feelings of personal worth and satisfaction that are attachedto these perceptions” (Joseph, 1979, p. 8). Furthermore, these gainsin Global Self-Concept were the result of even more dramatic gainsmade in one of its domains: Significance. The participants experi-enced considerable improvement in their perceptions of beingvalued by significant others. Finally, there was no such improve-
TABLE 5 Difference Between Adjusted Competence Domain Means
Source df SS MS F
Adjusted Means 1 1.03 1.03 0.72Error 100 142.37 1.42
TABLE 4 Difference Between Adjusted Significance Domain Means
Source df SS MS F p
Adjusted Means 1 11.57 11.75 6.33 < .05Error 100 185.66 1.86
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ment made in the students’ “perception[s] of being able to suc-cessfully perform and master environmental demands” (Joseph,1979, p. 8); that is, no significant gains were made in the Compe-tence domain of Global Self-Concept.
Discussion
Cohen, McDonell, and Osborn (1989) and Traynelis-Yurek andHansell (1993) contended that at-risk readers who receive Read-ing Recovery instruction experience significant increases in theirfeelings of competence. The present research does not confirmtheir findings. However, the present study does substantiate theresults of Wilson, Chapman, and Tunmer (1995). Wilson et al. in-vestigated the reading self-concepts of 26 six-year-old at-risk stu-dents and 26 six-year-old competent readers. In their study, readingself-concept was defined as “the set of beliefs, perceptions, andattitudes that individuals have regarding themselves as learners inregard to reading and reading-related activities” (Wilson et al.,1995, p. 35). They established that at-risk readers do, indeed, pos-sess lower perceptions of their own competencies in reading-relatedactivities when compared to capable readers. Reading Recoveryparticipation, they discovered, did not lead to significant gains inthese at-risk readers’ self-perceptions of their competence.
The present research also found that participants in ReadingRecovery did not experience improvements in their beliefs abouttheir abilities to manipulate their environments. (In the presentstudy, competence refers to the ability to master general environ-mental demands; in the investigation by Wilson et al., competencerefers to a more specific ability to master reading-related activi-ties.) Therefore, the two studies, the present research, and theanalysis by Wilson et al., suggest that Reading Recovery participa-tion does not assist six-year-old students in improving their senseof competence, either general mastery or reading mastery, duringa short testing duration of 12 to 20 weeks.
Although students do not initially experience an increase in theirbelief levels concerning their own competence as readers, Read-ing Recovery appears to assist them in increasing their level ofbelief about their value in the eyes of significant others. The gainsmade in feelings of significance are so plentiful that students alsoexperience gains in their global self-concepts. The results of the
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present study suggest that spending 30 minutes daily for an ex-tended period of time working diligently toward the mastery of acrucial skill (i.e., reading) enables students to perceive themselvesas valuable in others’ eyes, even if they do not as yet see themselvesas competent individuals.
The approaches that Reading Recovery teachers take towardinstruction and their students likely contribute to the gains stu-dents make in their abilities to read. These same approaches pos-sibly contribute to the gains students make in self-concept. ReadingRecovery rests upon the notion that teachers should build on (scaf-fold) students’ reading strengths and incorporate familiar eventsand experiences into the lessons. It is plausible that a relationshipexists between the growth students experience in feelings of sig-nificance (affective gains) and the emphasis Reading Recoveryteachers place on the unique academic and personal histories ofthe students.
In addition to being individualized, Reading Recovery seeks tobuild trust between the teacher and the student. Two weeks at thebeginning of the program are devoted solely to getting to knowthe student as an individual. This extended period of explora-tion (roaming around the known) presumably leads to feelings ofsignificance on the part of program participants. Furthermore,Reading Recovery teachers are trained to provide positive reac-tions and responses to the students’ reading processes, their gainedreading abilities, and their increased problem-solving abilities. Theteachers’ specific prompts and praises most likely are key compo-nents that lead to Reading Recovery students’ improved feelingsof significance.
School districts that chose to implement and maintain a Read-ing Recovery program would reap considerable benefits. One ofthe systemic advantages could be that the districts gain studentswho experience improved self-concepts due to enhanced feelingsof significance. Not only will the Reading Recovery participantsmost likely become independent readers, they will also most likelybecome more confident, positive, self-accepting, proud, adaptable,and eager to complete tasks. As a result of their increased self-concepts, the Reading Recovery students may even experiencemoderate improvements in academic achievement.
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Reading Recovery and Students’ Self-Concepts 29
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