In the News: Henry May

CEHD Associate Professor Shares Insight on Potential Harm of Reading Recovery Program

More than 200 media outlets, including The Washington Post and The New York Times, recently featured the evaluation research of Henry May, associate professor in the College of Education and Human Development’s (CEHD) School of Education and director of CEHD’s Center for Research in Education and Social Policy.

In his study, May and his co-authors examined the effectiveness of the Reading Recovery program, a popular literacy program for elementary school students. They found that students who received the program’s intensive one-on-one help as struggling first-graders had lower test scores years later than a similar cohort that didn’t participate in the program. May suggests that the Reading Recovery program may not be as effective as proponents claim and could potentially be harmful in the long term.

Read May’s Study