Evaluating the effectiveness of the Reading Recovery program pioneered in New Zealand by Marie Clay (daily supplemental lessons, for students with reading difficulties, which develop a strategy-oriented, self-improving reading system), a study examined the success of the program in an Old Order Amish population of first-grade students from Ohio. Subjects, 44 first-grade students from five elementary schools in the East Holmes (Ohio) Local School District, included 15 non-Amish and 29 Old Order Amish children. Four categories of students were defined: (1) Reading Recovery children, who received 60 or more lessons or who were officially discontinued from the program; (2) Discontinued Reading Recovery children, who successfully completed the program; (3) Not Discontinued Reading Recovery children, who were not officially released from the program but who discontinued for other reasons; and (4) Non-Reading Recovery children, who served as a comparison group. Observational assessments included letter identification, word test, concepts about print, writing vocabulary, dictation, and text reading. Results indicated that the differences between the Amish culture and the public school environment did not inhibit the progress of Amish children in a strategy oriented program of beginning reading instruction for at-risk readers. Amish children were recovered at an unusually high rate in a shorter period of time than the non-Amish students. (Six tables are included and 30 references are appended.) (MM)