skills has been named as a finalist for a child advocacy award.

Reading Recovery creator Dr. Marie Clay of Auckland, New Zealand is up against five other international humanitarians for the Kellogg's Hannah Neil World of Children Award.

Reading Recovery trains teachers to provide intensive tutoring to six-year-olds who have difficulty learning to read and write.

To date the programme has benefited more than one million children around the globe. It was implemented in Bermuda in 1997.

The other five finalists are: English paediatrician Dr. David Southall who established Child Advocacy International; Xu Yongguang of Beijing, China, who founded the China Youth Development Foundation; California's Peter Samuelson who formed the Starlight Children's Foundation; New Yorker Rose Washington, a former commissioner of the New York City's Department of Juvenile Justice, who created the Spofford Miracle and runs the Berkshire Farm Center; and Kathleen Magee of Norfolk, Virginia, who organised Operation Smile with her plastic surgeon husband.