Reading Recovery is a guidebook for training teachers to deliver an early intervention program designed to reduce literacy problems in an education system. Children entering the Reading Recovery program are those from ordinary classes who have the most difficulty in reading and writing after one year at school.

Since the Reading Recovery program is different for every child, the implementation of a successful program requires thorough teacher training. Using the child's competencies as a starting point, the program advances toward what the child is trying to accomplish. The teaching, therefore, must be individually designed and individually delivered. Using the guidelines in this book, teachers learn how to provide each child with an intensive program of daily instruction which supplements the regular class instruction activities.

The goal of Reading Recovery is to help children acquire efficient patterns of learning to enable them to work at the average level of their classmates and to continue to progress satisfactorily in their own school's instructional program. When recognized training accompanies the use of procedures contained in this book, success rates are consistently high and surprising.