Roaming in the known

In the first two weeks of Reading Recovery lessons the teacher creates lessons that are designed for each child.  For these two weeks of lessons, the teacher works with what the child already knows how to do.  The teacher offers the child many opportunities to learn on a wide range of easy tasks.  The teacher shares the tasks of reading and writing by doing for the child what the child cannot do for themselves.

Reasons why Roaming around the known makes a good starting point

·        It provides an opportunity for the teacher and child to get to know each other and to develop useful ways of interacting.

·        It allows the teacher to strengthen all that the child is able to do, helping the child achieve a level of confident and fluency that will assist the child later.

·        It allows the child to discover things that the child did not know they knew.

·        It provides opportunities for the teacher to work mostly with reading text and writing messages.  It gives the child the feeling that they are really reading and writing.