A study (replicating a similar 1977 study by S. Stotsky), examined whether current basal series teach prefixion clearly. Teacher's guides, student texts, and workbooks of nine popular basal reader series were examined to ascertain whether they offered a clear definition of the term "prefix" and whether that definition was reinforced by…

The purpose of this study was to determine to what extent the breakdown of Newtonian classical physics and the new concepts of modern physics have changed the treatment of elementary physics in undergraduate college textbooks and to evaluate implications of the change. Forty-three textbooks published between 1910 and 1966 were examined and placed…

In many classrooms, the textbook becomes the main source used to determine objectives, procedures, opinions, questions, thoughts, and other items used in teaching U.S. history. This study was done to determine how the Reconstruction Era was presented in a selected group of junior high school U.S. history textbooks. The books were classified…

The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of verbal and perceptual aspects of learner aptitude, in relation to inspection behaviors performed while learning from written materials containing two modes of instructional content. Science instructional materials containing both text and diagrams were modified by (1) inserting questions that…

Teacher editions of four basal reading series used in the first, fourth, and sixth grades were analyzed to determine the extent of inclusion and explanation of the levels of questioning. Questions from the first two, middle two, and last two stories in each of the teacher editions were analyzed. All teacher editions examined recognized the…

The purpose of this study was to examine the factors that have influenced the selection and the production of the literature textbooks for grades 10-12 in the public schools in Tennessee from 1951 to 1971: guidelines set up by the Tennessee State Textbook Commission and by the publishers; the adopted editions of literature textbooks listed in the…

Forty-five textbooks of biology, chemistry, and physics (new and traditional curricula) were analyzed for the extent to which they devoted words to scientists. Each scientist named in each text was identified, and word counts were established for the total words devoted to each scientist and the number of these words which were humanistic by the…

The major purpose of this thesis was to show that it is possible to develop a theoretically sound and empirically based rationale for determining the systematic introduction and use of vocabulary in middle-grade reading instructional material. A major portion of the research for this thesis consisted of a content analysis of six current reading…

The purposes of this study were to determine to what extent selected critical reading skills are presented in current basal readers; to determine commonalities in their presentation; to ascertain if critical skills are stated as specific objectives; and to determine if practice and evaluation materials are provided for each selected skill by the…

Fry's Readability Graph was used to determine the readability levels of the 1981 Scott, Foresman and Co. basal textbook series for grades one through six. The readability levels were then compared to those established for the 1978 edition. In the 1981 edition, all stories were handscored. Poems, skill lessons, and plays were not examined in order…

This study determines the extent to which skills of written composition, as defined by a modern rhetorical theory, appear in a selected sample of resources available to teachers. The sources judged and evaluated in the content analysis were textbooks used in preparation of English teachers, textbooks used by students in English classes,…

A scheme based on Bloom's taxonomy of educational objectives was developed for classifying questions asked in basal reading manuals. A total of 6,988 questions from 144 lesson plans selected from basal readers from four major publishers were analyzed; 2,754 questions were from the 1950-1959 time period, and 4,234 were from the 1966-1975 time…

English as a Second Language (ESL) composition textbooks were compared with freshman composition textbooks through a national survey of U.S. universities. A detailed content analysis of nine ESL and eighteen English composition texts was conducted. A questionnaire was sent to selected universities asking the faculty to answer textbook-related…

This issue of the "Interracial Books for Children Bulletin" has three major articles. The first deals with the book titled, "The Five Chinese Brothers". This is one of the most widely circulated children's books in the United States. Although this book has been tauted as being authentically "Chinese", it is being…

An annotated bibliography of materials concerning the role of culture in foreign language learning focuses on the complexity and the importance of cultural awareness and on its integration into the foreign language curriculum. The first group of citations concerns the value of culture in the communication process and includes materials on…