Reading Recovery^® is an effective early literacy intervention that provides a second chance for students who do not get off to a good start in literacy learning.  In 1989, NYU became the first Reading Recovery Teacher Leader Training site in the Northeast. 'Recovery' means getting back onto a successful learning path after a slow or difficult start and Reading Recovery is a short-term intervention designed to accelerate progress and lift achievement levels for the lowest performing first grade students. Students receive 30 minutes of daily, one-on-one instruction from a highly-trained Reading Recovery teacher for 12 to 20 weeks. In  conjunction with good classroom instruction, Reading Recovery assists students who initially struggle with early literacy learning to reach grade-level performance in reading and writing in a remarkably short period of time and significantly reduces the number of children requiring additional services.

NYU now serves as the primary teacher leader training site for Reading Recovery in New York and New Jersey.  Fairfax County, Virginia and Souderton, Pennsylvania are also affiliated to NYU. Approximately 10,226 children have been served by the 1,242 Reading Recovery teachers trained in NYU affiliated sites, who now work in 686 schools.  NYU prepares teacher leaders who, following a year of graduate level coursework, are qualified to train Reading Recovery teachers in their local school districts or regions. The project is a cooperative venture between the university and a school district or a consortium of districts that have made the required long-term committment to implement Reading Recovery.

Descubriendo La Lectura (DLL) is the Spanish version of Reading Recovery. DLL works with the lowest performing first grade Spanish speaking students in reading and writing. The goal of this program is to enable these students to read and write within the average band of their bilingual classrooms.  Because Reading Recovery instruction is in Spanish, teachers receive specific training in order to provide DLL services to children.