A study examined the first grade materials in five new basal programs submitted for the 1993 Texas state adoption. (The programs were those of Harcourt Brace Jovanovich; Houghton Mifflin; Scott Foresman; Macmillan/McGraw-Hill; and Silver Burdett Ginn). These series are compared with program materials currently in use in the state. The analysis…

A study determined whether basal series published in 1993 are consistent with research on literacy development which indicates that children need authentic text that is full-length, unedited and connects content to the reading experience. Pupil editions, teacher's manuals, lesson structure, skills taught, the amount of skill work compared to…

One of a series dealing with current issues affecting language arts instruction, this paper focuses on the conceptions and misconceptions of readability. The paper begins by noting that over the years, researchers in readability have had two major goals: to determine what makes written materials easy or difficult to read and comprehend, and to…

This guide is intended for use by adult basic education practitioners in the screening of basic reading textbooks prior to their adoption for classroom use. The guide is in the form of a questionnaire and consists of dichotomous-choice questions arranged into three sections that relate to the product design, adult learning, and reading instruction…

In the summer of 1971, the Adult Learning Center decided to conduct a one-year, research-based field test of programmed instructional materials specifically designed to teach disadvantaged adults to read. The four programs tested for effectiveness were Programmed Reading for Adults, Building Reading Power, Reading Series, and Building Your…

This investigation analyzes 16 current reading series in order to: (1) determine if sex stereotyping exists in reading materials for grades 1-10, (2) determine if a majority of the stories show one sex in a dominant role, (3) explore types of career roles shown for females and males, and (4) determine the number of different career roles depicted…

Concludes that it is necessary to consider text frequency and standard frequency index and to discriminate technical words from technical support and nontechnical words to obtain a reliable indication of a science text's readability. (AEA)

Examines the foreign language learning needs of undergraduate and postgraduate learners of Russian, focusing on their need to develop reading skills and on the effectiveness of traditional instructional materials designed to foster the development of foreign language reading skills. Alternative strategies for integrating reading into the total…

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…

This reference is intended for teachers who are responsible for selecting textbooks for biology or life science courses. The publication provides reviewers with a compilation of 10 biology and 7 life science textbook reviews. Using this document as a resource, teachers can save valuable time by reducing the number of books they review and pilot…

The two reading programs discussed in this paper, "Reading Unlimited" (RU) published by Scott Foresman and "New Primary Grades Reading Systems" (RS) by the University of Pittsburgh Learning Research and Development Center, provide maximal contrasts in materials and teaching strategies. The instructional strategies in RU are…

A study was conducted to discover what adult literacy students in Northern Ireland felt about a series of booklets that had been developed especially for such students and to find out the students' levels of comprehension of the materials--specifically to determine if comprehension depended on the subject's reading age. Twenty-one male students…

The revised Spache Readability Formula and the Fry Readability Formula were applied to 20 selected reading materials designed for adolescents reading at second grade level. Three samples from each text were examined. The results using the Spache formula corresponded to the publisher's stated readability levels, with no significant variability…

This booklet shows teachers and administrators how their school districts can use the Reading Authority List of the Reading Information System I (I-RIS), an analytic process for making decisions about language arts curriculum materials. Following an outline of I-RIS, pages of the Reading Authority List are accompanied by guidelines for using the…

To provide guidelines for educators who plan career development in school programs, this research studied the influences on career development of young children. Evidence was sought to determine how the world of work is presented to children in the elementary reading texts and materials. Samples of reading materials used in the elementary…