Suggests picture books are made more difficult for kids to predict, to make sense of, and to learn from by fitting them into the didactic framework of basals. Discusses the picture book genre. Compares the original version of "Ira Sleeps Over" to the basal version. Examines in detail how picture books are made to fit into a basal…

Discusses 3 different categories of literacy programs discerned in observations of 37 kindergarten classrooms over an 8-year period: maturationist teachers, basal teachers, and emergent literacy teachers. Provides perceived rationales for the existence of these categories. (SR)

Offers 10 basic guidelines that might help reading teachers who use basal readers to make more effective instructional decisions about what to teach. (MG)

Assessed elementary teachers' attitudes toward reading instruction, the role of basal readers in reading instruction, and the needs fulfilled for students, teachers, parents, and school administrators through classroom reading instruction. Found a conflict between teachers' beliefs and their reported methods of teaching. (MM)

Studies one struggling reader and her self-directed pathways to progress as she consistently chose old basal-sounding, beginner-oriented materials over newer, aesthetically constructed literature. Investigates differences between beginner-oriented texts and aesthetically constructed literature. Concludes some struggling readers need repetitious…

Examines a first-grade, rural school teacher's use of a newly adopted literature-based basal reading series over the course of one year. Finds that the teacher had a positive attitude toward the new series and believed that she had changed her methods and beliefs of teaching reading. Shows that in fact she modified the materials to meet her…

Shows how two teacher educators and two teachers, combining their energies, worked through the difficult transition from basal readers to literature-based curriculums. Contains specific sections in which the elementary school teachers talk about their experience. (TB)

Finds four major unresolved issues, according to state legislators: (1) assessment of students' reading progress; (2) whole language versus basal approaches; (3) use of tradebooks in place of basals; and (4) whether at-risk readers should spend increased time reading or practicing isolated reading skills. Suggests that legislators lack sufficient…

This study compared using explicit rule-based instruction and a basal-reader activity-based approach for teaching 40 fourth-grade students with learning disabilities to determine character motive in three types of narrative texts. Rule-based instruction was superior to the activity-based approach when teaching character motives irrespective of…

A study examined the nature and extent of the instruction, application, and practice in deriving word meanings from context in a variety of basal reading series. Seven major basal reading series at the fourth-grade level (published between 1986 and 1989 and readily available) were analyzed. Results indicated that: (1) the series differed…

A study examined the content of eight 1989 editions of the major basal reading series--those of Harcourt Brace Jovanovich; D.C. Heath and Co.; Holt Rinehart and Winston; Houghton Mifflin; Macmillan; McGraw-Hill; Scott, Foresman and Co.; and Silver Burdett and Ginn. The study determined how and the extent to which lessons and activities that…

An ethnographic study examined the issue of educational equity in student placement as it related to the first-grade reading program in the San Diego City Schools. Four first-grade classrooms from four different schools, one in each of the districts's four operations areas, were selected for study as being representative of the geographic…

Two separate research methodologies, quantitative analysis and qualitative analysis, were employed to determine the differences in second grade children on method of reading instruction. Fifty children in two classrooms from one school in North Carolina were subjects. One of the two teachers employed a literature based methodology, while the…

A study investigated whether students in whole language based and basal reader approaches would have different concepts of reading when asked to define reading. Subjects, 69 suburban New Jersey first and third graders and 16 New Zealand first graders, were asked 3 questions: "What is reading?"; "What do you do when you read?";…

The lion's share of funding made available under Title I of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) was directed to schools that served large numbers of children from low-income families. In an attempt to quickly upgrade the quality of reading instruction in these schools, specialist teachers were hired to supplement the reading…