10-second review: Now called “Core Reading Programs,” basals have been adapted to the era in which they were published. At the present time, they have been adapted to meet the current interests of our contemporary era of the No Child Left Behind law.
Title: “Comprehension Strategy Instruction in Core Reading Programs.” P Dewitz, J Jones and S Leahy. Reading Research Quarterly (April/May/June 2009), 102-126.
Quote: “Although the dominance of basal reading programs waxes and wanes depending on the zeitgeist of the era, basals, now called core reading programs, maintain their prominence by adapting their materials to the dominant educational trends of the moment. When skills management systems were in vogue in the 1970s, skills instruction, worksheet practice and criterion-referenced tests were at the core of the basal programs. In the 1990s, when literature-based instruction and authentic texts were driving the field, the core programs built the content of reading around selections from the children’s literature canon and built instruction around response to literature. With the passage of the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act and the Reading First mandate to use scientifically based reading-research programs, core reading programs have adapted by augmenting the phoneme-awareness and phonics instruction, incorporating more work on fluency and providing auxiliary materials for intervention.”
Comment: I think only positive results can come from adapting basals or Core Programs to the latest thinking in reading instruction. I believe the main value of basals is in providing sequential instruction in reading for teachers, most of whom have had only minimal instruction in teaching reading. Once teachers have worked with basals for several years, they begin to make their own adaptations to compensate for the inadequacies of the basals. RayS.
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