Analyzing Basal Readers

A significant flaw in the current school system is the lack of diversity addressed by certain curriculum materials.  The following basal readers were analyzed for the ways they addressed diversity in the classroom regarding both backgrounds of students and diverse learning styles and needs.

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McGraw-Hill
​Reading Wonders: Gr. 5

Strengths: 
​■Aligned with the Common Core
■Unit overview has all the standards listed for each week
■Asks essential questions
■Works on several literacy strategies
■Skills are introduced sequentially and progress throughout the year
■Assessments are clear and can provide accurate records
■Diverse texts, large variety
■Writing ideas
■Color coordinated
■Offers pretest and posttests
■Differentiated instruction options for ELL learners

Weaknesses:
■Only differentiate for ELL students
■Stifle teacher creativity (Lesson plans are formatted for day to day instruction.  What happens when a specific day doesn’t go as planned? Do the other days lessons get bumped? Modified?)
■One-size fits all approach to reading instruction (No differentiation for students with diverse needs other than ELLs)
■Teacher frustration with lack of diversity
■Hard for struggling students to keep up with the pace
■Designed to reward the average student while advanced and struggling students are left behind
■Unnecessarily enormous​

Macmillan/McGraw
​Treasures: Gr. 1

Strengths: 
​■It is consistent week to week
■Included additional resources for English Language Learners
■Common Core aligned 
■There are a lot of digital resources

Weaknesses:
■There is a fee to see how it is actually aligned with the CCSS
■A fee is required to get more sample lesson plans
■Little to no flexibility for differentiation
■Differentiation suggestions are strictly for ELLs
■Teacher's edition does not explicitly follow the student's stories and texts in their readers.
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Group 2 Reader

Strengths:
■Small group guided reading texts are leveled based on students' skill set.

• Each leveled text focuses on the same topic

■Build in assessments

• Pre-assessments
• Monitoring
• Post assessments

■Provides essential questions for each lesson
■Online piece for students and teachers

• Students can access online material from home

■Connects to different learning styles (visual, auditory, verbal, kinesthetic)
■Graphic organizers
■ELL link
■Increases in difficulty as lessons progress

Weaknesses: 
■Does not build instructor's contextual background
■Lack of authentic text
■Struggling students may have a difficult time keeping up with the pace of the different lessons and topics
■Differentiations only for small group, not whole group settings
■Material may not appeal to all students

• Doesn't include a lot of diverse stories or lessons

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Examples of Basal Readers