A REPORT to St Helens Council's Education Committee on the Reading Recovery programme aimed at children who have severe literacy difficulties, shows clear evidence that they have made gains in all areas.

The council has a major commitment to the programme which is an internationally-proven methodology which aims to intervene with Year One children and to significantly improve their reading and writing abilities.

In St Helens the programme has been developed with a successful accompanying classroom project, designed to reinforce literary gains and an innovative parent education programme which aims to help parents with strategies to support their children's learning.

The key points from the report for 1994-95, the third year of the project, include:

Clear evidence that children benefiting from Reading Recovery made gains in all areas in which they were assessed.

To date, there have been 22 teachers trained in Reading Recovery, with a further 12 undergoing training in the current academic year.

Twenty schools have programmes and 160 children who were most at risk of literacy failure.

A parent programme has been delivered by members of the Family and Community Education team in 20 schools, with 118 parents receiving accreditation.

An infant classroom has been piloted in six primary schools.

The Reading Recovery tutor has helped develop a Secondary Literacy Training Programme.

Chair of Education, Councillor Marlene Newman said: "The report clearly shows the effectiveness of the programme and the real gains being made in the areas of English teaching as well as teaching reading and writing. The programme is a credit to all those involved with it - teachers, parents and the children themselves."

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