Reports that five basal reader programs, kindergarten through grade six, give far more attention to assessment and practice than to direct, explicit, comprehension instruction. (AEA)

Indicates that popular methods texts used in college classes are no better than basal manuals in providing guidance in how to teach comprehension. (FL)

A vast amount of reading comprehension research was reported in the late 1970s and throughout the 1980s. The study reported in this paper used the basal reading programs considered by California for adoption in 1988 as a vehicle for examining how the comprehension research had affected basal materials. Five series that were completely new and that…

As part of an effort to discover what was being done with comprehension instruction in classrooms, basal reader manuals, and reading methodology textbooks, an analysis was made of the content of eight reading methods textbooks that had copyright dates at least as recent as 1983 and that were the most frequently used texts. All the pages in the…

A study examined 1989 kindergarten (K) manuals of basal reading materials. The question of central concern was whether and how the manuals facilitate a teacher's efforts to match instruction with children's ability. A closely related concern was whether and how the manuals describe ways to keep some children occupied with useful activities so as…