The quest to keep young children from falling behind in school begins right here at Ohio State.

OSU is one of only two universities — the other being Texas Woman’s University — to serve as training centers for the Reading Recovery Program.

“Reading Recovery is an early intervention for first-grade students who have fallen behind their peers,” said Emily Rodgers, an assistant professor in the College of Education and a Reading Recovery trainer of teacher leaders.

“The idea is, by intervening early and giving them some specialized help — who will work with them one-on-one — that they’ll be able to catch up to their peers,” she said.

Reading Recovery was created in the early 1980s. It was brought to OSU when a graduate student came across the research and brought it to the attention of faculty in the college of education.

“Reading Recovery was started in New Zealand by Marie Clay, who is a well-known reading researcher,” said Marsha Studebaker, director of communications at the Reading Recovery Council of North America.

“Researchers brought it here in 1984,” she said. “They did a pilot study to see if it would work in the U.S., and it has worked very well.”

Last year, 5,547 first-grade students in Ohio were part of the Reading Recovery program. From this group, 76 percent of the children were successful in reaching average levels of reading and writing.

Many of these children would have been placed in special education later on in school if not for Reading Recovery, Rodgers said.

“There’s research that’s tracked kids without a second chance. A kid who’s really progressing low in first grade had an 88-percent chance of being low in fourth grade. On the other hand, if you’re an average first-grader, you only have a 12-percent chance of being low in fourth grade,” Rodgers said.

Every year, 150,000 children go through Reading Recovery. OSU collects all the data for the National Data Evaluation Center in Columbus, andgives this information back to the school districts to allow them to see how they are progressing.

Reading Recovery is known for its high quality.

“It’s known for the expertise of the teachers and the powerful development model,” said Susan Fullerton, an assistant professor in the school of teaching and learning in the College of Education, and a Reading Recovery trainer of teacher leaders. “It’s been highly praised by educators for the training provided by the teachers.”

Since it came to OSU in 1984, more than 1 million children have been helped by Reading Recovery.

Reading Recovery begins with teachers going back to college.

“They have a year-long training,” Rodgers said. “They’ll take credit from the university while they’re being trained by the teacher leader.”

A teacher from a school district will come to OSU to be trained by a teacher leader trainer. After the training is complete, they become a teacher leader. The teacher leader can then go back to their school district and train other teachers how to work with students in the Reading Recovery program, Fullerton said.

OSU has six teachers who are being trained to become teacher leaders in their school districts. There are 57 teachers enrolled in the program throughout the state of Ohio.

The teachers are trained to identify students who are at risk of falling behind.

“As soon as you see them falling behind, you identify them and help them immediately,” Rodgers said. “The teachers need 30 minutes of uninterrupted time for the day.”

The program lasts anywhere from 12 to 20 weeks, depending on how fast the child progresses. During this time, the teacher works one-on-one with a child in the morning and assists the school in other areas during the afternoon.

“Reading Recovery teachers work with four children for the first half of the year and typically four children for the second half of the year,” Fullerton said.

Reading Recovery is able to get some of the students who would be put into special education back into a regular classroom.

“We look at it as the classroom instruction being the first wave of instruction. Reading Recovery is the second wave with teachers specially trained. The third wave is special education,” Rodgers said. “Reading Recovery is the early intervention before special education.”