Today my guest is Dr. Henry May  who has studied the popular first grade intervention Reading Recovery. We discuss results of two robust studies he was involved in—one showing strong positive effects in first grade, and another showing students who received the intervention underperformed years later on their third and fourth grade tests. We discuss why that might be, and what lessons we can learn about short term and ongoing interventions, as well as the ways that reading needs change and develop across grades K-4. Later, I’m joined by my colleagues Gina Dignon and Macie Kerbs for a conversation about practical takeaways.

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To read a transcript of this episode and learn more about the show, visit jenniferserravallo.com/podcast.

To read Dr. May's study: https://doi.org/10.1080/19345747.2023.2209092

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About this episode’s guest:

Henry May, PhD, is Director of the Center for Research in Education and Social Policy(CRESP) and Associate Professor specializing in Evaluation, Measurement, and Statistics in the School of Education at the University of Delaware. 

Dr. May is the Principal Investigator (PI) with Elizabeth Farley-Ripple for the Institute of Education Sciences (IES)-funded Center for Research Use in Education, which is currently conducting a large-scale mixed methods study of how and when schools use research and how researchers strive to connect their work with practice. Other current and recent research projects include the 2011-2015 randomized field trial and an IES-funded efficacy follow-up study of Reading Recovery. Dr. May was also the primary author on an National Center for Education Evaluation technical methods report on the use of state test scores in education experiments from the IES.

Since 2003, Dr. May has taught advanced statistics and research methods courses to graduate students at the University of Pennsylvania and the University of Delaware.

Special thanks to Scotty Sanders for audio editing this episode. https://www.scottysandersmedia.com/

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