Reading Recovery is an intervention approach that targets first graders. The approach is based on the research of Marie Clay, a developmental child psychologist from New Zealand. Reading Recovery has demonstrated success in New Zealand, England, and the United States

Some of the principles of Reading Recovery are:

• children learn to read and write by reading and writing
• children are assessed in a variety of ways
• instructon is based on the child's strengths rather than weaknesses
• instruction is individualized, intense, and frequent
• time is not spent teaching skills the child already knows

Children in Reading Recovery are provided structured, one-on-one lessons for one-half hour each day. The teacher's responsibility is to respond to each child in a way that supports the development of an independent system for reading and writing. Each thirty-minute lesson has six components:

• Rereading of familiar books
• Running record of previous days work
• Letter and/or word work
• Writing
• Cut-up sentences
• Introduction of a new book

Which all work together to foster a child's attempts to read.