Analyzes some problems that can make beginning basal stories difficult for young readers to understand and offers suggestions for ways teachers can help alleviate the problems. (FL)

This paper is a discursive presentation of results of an examination of comprehension instruction provided by widely used basal reader series. Focusing on selections in the first three grades of the 1976 Houghton Mifflin Reading Series, the analyses looked at the sorts of selections the students are asked to read, at the amount of text which they…

Discusses the use of content area textbooks and indicates that content textbooks are difficult for students to understand because the books generally are not well written. Offers solutions for how to use content textbooks and illustrates how lessons can be created through the integration of tradebooks and through discussions in which critical…

The following assumptions motivated this monograph's analysis of commercial based reading programs: (1) basals represent the state of the art in reading instruction; (2) to offer suggestions for improvement of instruction, existing practices must be understood in detail; and (3) information about instruction contained in the literature at large or…

Focuses on the content and presentation of instructional sequences on the American Revolution in four commercial fifth-grade social studies textbook series. Discusses problems with content, learning objectives, background, and explanation. (FMW)

Two of the most widely used reading programs in the country, the 1976 Houghton Mifflin Reading Series and the 1976 Ginn Reading 720 Series, are analyzed in this volume to determine the methods they suggest for teaching reading comprehension. Eight sections contain the following information: (1) a short description of some of the surface features…