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Essay On Mildred Clay

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Marie Mildred Clay: Life and Legacy "If the child is a struggling reader or writer the conclusion must be that we have not yet discovered the way to help him learn” (Clay, 2005, Literacy Lessons Designed for Individuals Part 2, p. 158). Literacy has grown to become a worldwide problem and most people are unaware that it exist. A lady, from New Zealand, by the name of Marie Mildred Clay was known for her research contribution in the field of education literacy. Clay was a clinical child psychologist and education specialist. Her work has helped thousands of children through her research and teaching strategies. She was an advocate for early intervention among young children. Her commitment to provide services to help children improve their …show more content…

If a child does not possess these skills, the greater the probability it is for the child to always have difficulties with literacy skills. Clay’s philosophy for the Reading Recovery was
“In a complex model of interacting competencies in reading and writing the reader can potentially draw from all his or her current understanding, and all his or her language competencies, and visual information, and phonological information, and knowledge of printing conventions, in ways which extend both the searching and linking processes as well as the item knowledge repertoires. Learners pull together necessary information from print in simple ways at first . . . but as opportunities to read and write accumulate over time the learner becomes able to quickly and momentarily construct a somewhat complex operating system which might solve the problem. There is no simplified way to engage in the complex activities …” (Clay, 2001, p.224)

Clay’s research focused on literacy behaviors connected to young children. She studied their progression of reading and writing skills over a period of time. The Reading Recovery is based on her work of the literacy processing theory. This theory became the guide used to teach the method principles in the Reading Recovery program. “It must be acknowledged that Marie
Clay was actually the first reading researcher to use RTI to identify children who might be afflicted by organically based reading

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