News Release Archive

EDUCATION/CULTURE--EARLY INTERVENTION HELPS YOUNG READERS
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The first annual Provincial Reading Recovery Conference will be
held this Friday and Saturday, May 23-24, at Mount Saint Vincent
University in Halifax.

More than 150 trained Reading Recovery teachers and teacher
leaders from the four Atlantic provinces are expected to attend
sessions led by Barbara Watson, national director of Reading
Recovery from New Zealand.

Reading Recovery is a successful intervention program that
provides intensive help by specially trained teachers to children
in Grade 1 who require extra support in becoming effective
readers and writers.

Developed by Dame Marie Clay in New Zealand during the 1970s,
Reading Recovery has spread to much of the English-speaking world
and has been widely adopted by school systems in New Zealand,
Australia, Britain, the United States and Canada. The
redevelopment of Reading Recovery in French for worldwide use
will begin next year in Nova Scotia.

The former Halifax district school board first introduced Reading
Recovery to Nova Scotia in 1989. Between 1989 and 1995, three
teacher leaders in Halifax and Lunenburg Co. trained 47 teachers
to be Reading Recovery teachers. This year, teacher leaders
trained about 60 more in Reading Recovery methods throughout the
province.

In addition to the sessions led by Ms. Watson on Friday, there
will be a presentation to school and regional administrators by
Dianne Stuart, national trainer/administrator with the Canadian
Institute of Reading Recovery based in Toronto.

In the throne speech opening the spring 1977 legislative sitting,
the Nova Scotia government pledged continued support to Reading
Recovery as a successful early intervention program in reading
and writing.

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Contact: Catherine MacIsaac
         902-424-2795

         Bill Colpitts
         902-424-2032 or 424-5972

NOTE TO EDITORS: A factsheet is available by calling
902-424-4492.

trp                    May 21, 1997 - 4 p.m.