Patrick O'Donovan (Limerick, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Ceann Comhairle for selecting this matter and the Minister for Education and Skills for attending.

Last Friday I attended a presentation of certificates in the Limerick Education Centre, with which the Minister will be very familiar. The certificates were for teachers who have recently obtained a qualification to deliver the Reading Recovery programme. As the Minister will know, this is an early intervention programme offered to children in senior infants and first class to improve their literacy. The participants have an obvious need of help of a concerted one-to-one nature. The programme has been in operation for a number of years. In excess of 20,000 children have benefited from it since its initiation and there is widespread support for it. In the recent past, the Department of Education and Skills has sanctioned the provision of Reading Recovery to non-DEIS schools. This follows on from the previous debate.

The main issue concerns the training of Reading Recovery teachers and those teachers who are on secondment being returned to their posts after five years. This leaves a gap in respect of the ability of education centres like the Limerick Education Centre to train Reading Recovery teachers. It is estimated that there are seven leaders. An extra two leaders would be able to train an additional 28 teachers for schools across the country. This would benefit in or around 200 children. Anywhere between 280 and 300 children would potentially benefit from this.

I know that a huge number of schools has already signalled that they would like to be able to get into this. I think in excess of 155 non-DEIS schools have applied. While the Department has allowed non-DEIS schools to enter the Reading Recovery programme, the fact that we are short of Reading Recovery leaders because they are returning to the classroom to carry out functions in their base schools means we do not have the capability to train them.

I do not believe anybody really disputes the merits of Reading Recovery. If one saw the five children who were present last Friday afternoon when I visited Marshal House in Limerick, listened to their parents talk about the change in confidence and behaviour the programme has brought about and listened to their teachers talk about the transition those children can make from first class up through the ranks without having recourse to learning support and resource, which is the usual safety net that is left when children move from first class and do not have the basic literacy levels attained, one could see that this crutch is removed. This is an 18 week programme. It is a short stint and is a very focused, intensive and parent-supported scheme that works.

Unfortunately, if a child is in a small rural school or an urban non-DEIS school, they may not have access to it. A child can be educationally disadvantaged in any location in the country. Their postal address does not dictate whether they will or will not be disadvantaged. Going back to the previous discussion, the model of assigning resources, be they for Reading Recovery, learning support or resource, based on a postal address is a bit outdated. A child can be every bit as socially and educationally disadvantaged in a very affluent area as they can be in a so-called socially deprived area. Could we get those Reading Recovery leaders in place to put the necessary teachers out into the schools through our education centres to deliver this programme?

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