A study attempted to determine how students in literature-based reading programs compare to students in basal-based, skill-oriented reading programs in terms of their interest in reading. The study was carried out on a sample of 215 pupils in 9 third and fifth grade classrooms from school districts in Eastern Kansas and Northeastern Oklahoma.…

Ten Oklahoma reading textbooks from five publishers contained 462 stories, of which 28% were multicultural. A survey of 148 teachers from 10 rural Oklahoma schools found that only 4% of books used in classrooms addressed cultural diversity. Tradebooks address cultural diversity better than textbooks, but are less available to rural teachers.…