Marie M. Clay
"If children are apparently unable to learn, we should assume that we have not as yet found the right way to teach them."
was born in Wellington, New Zealand. She studied education at Victoria University College, graduating BA in 1947 and MA with second-class honours in 1949.She also received a Diploma of Education from the same institution in 1948. After studying clinical child psychology at the University of Minnesota as a Fulbright scholar, Clay received her PhD from the University of Auckland in 1966, where she had been on the faculty since 1960.
She developed the Reading Recovery intervention programme, which was adopted by all New Zealand schools in 1983. In 1985, teachers and researchers from Ohio State University brought Reading Recovery to the United States. Reading Recovery is an early intervention for at-risk students in grade one that is designed to close gaps within an average of 12–20 weeks. The programme is currently used in Great Britain, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and the United States, including Department of Defense Schools.
