Over the past 50 years, substantial changes have occurred in the texts used for beginning reading instruction. This article analyzes four perspectives that have most influenced these texts in the United States over this period and the changes in these texts in relation to those in the nation's demographics and young children's literacy-related…

The Common Core State Standards for English Language Arts (CCSS-ELA) will have a significant impact on what teachers teach and what primary students are supposed to be able to do (Bomer & Maloch, 2011). By the end of fourth grade, reading instruction should be evenly balanced between literary text and informational text (NGA Center and CCSSO,…

Syntax in four published series of elementary school readers was analyzed to discover patterns of complexity increasing from first to sixth grade, to identify structures accounting for differences across the grades, and to compare the frequency of specific structures among the series. Analyses of 16 surface structures representing complexities…

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…

A discussion of the development, final content, and uses of fifteen commercial reading programs is presented. (MKM)

Concludes that there is a need for a broader-based compensatory reading program at the college freshman and sophomore levels. (FL)

Noting that the terms "language of mathematics,""language of science," and "language of business" represent very real language differences which frustrate even good readers, this curriculum report suggests several procedures teachers might use to assist students in reading in varied content areas. The procedures include teaching students to…

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…

Initial activities in a collaborative reading project for tenth graders were based on the categorizing process, which is the basis for understanding the structure of ideas in most textbooks. Ideas are organized in a hierarchy of related categories moving down from the title, through chapter headings, main headings, subheadings, to paragraphs.…

A study was conducted to examine the instructional approaches to decoding and comprehension in the first grade basal reading programs published by Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich (1983); Houghton Mifflin (1979); Ginn (1976); and SRA Reading Mastery (1983). In addition, analyses were completed on the comprehensibility of matched stories from each of…