A series of nine booklets was developed to help members of textbook adoption committees, teacher educators, inservice leaders, and policymakers gather information, develop evaluation guidelines, and organize their findings as they select new reading programs and evaluate existing ones. Each booklet focuses on a specific aspect of instruction.…

The process of evaluating and selecting basal readers has long been a primary concern for educators. Educators directly involved with textbook adoptions have expressed several concerns, including: time pressures on evaluators; lack of training for evaluators; concerns related to publishers; and correlations with state or district curriculum.…

Serving as the basis for the first administrative complaint alleging sex discrimination in textbooks to be filed under federal law, the findings presented in this report are based on an analysis, made by parents and citizens in a midwestern city, of 12 texts in the elementary reading program of a major publisher. Generally, the findings are stated…

When elementary school teachers serve on a committee to select a new basal reader program, they must represent their school's unique needs. To develop their awareness, the selection committee should address such questions as: What kind of program improvements are teachers hoping to get? What kind of articulation will be needed between this program…

To assist textbook adoption committees in answering the questions that arise as they consider basal reading series, this paper provides a discussion of readability. Following a brief introduction, the second section of the paper offers a background discussion of what readability really means. In addition, this section looks at three factors to…

Commercially developed basal reading programs are used in most elementary school classrooms in the United States. Yet often neither the publishers developing these programs nor the members of textbook adoption committees selecting programs are able to take advantage of the best available knowledge about the reading process and reading instruction.…

Kentucky is one of twenty-four states that rely upon a state adoption process for selecting school textbooks, a procedure that occurs every six years. Publishers' bids are solicited and evaluated by the State Textbook Commission, and the Textbook Selection Criteria Committee for Reading makes recommendations that will be of help to people…

A guide for teachers selecting reading textbooks, this report brings together information about basal programs on the market and clarification of important issues in reading instruction. A general analysis of 20 basal programs includes a prose explication and a table comparing contents (skills), reading selections, methodology, assessment tests,…

The results of an APEID (Asia and the Pacific Programme of Educational Innovation for Development) workshop on producing textbooks and other teaching and learning materials, especially in reading, for the first level of education are provided in this book. An initial overview presents the objectives and the organization of the workshop. The second…