Teachers Embedding Standards in Basal-Reader Questions

This is what is looks like when teacher-librarians are not involved in connecting great trade literature to the CCSS effort - basal reboot.

One question that is missing in this article is "Do basals provide the differentiated reading experiences all children need?"

Here is what Dylan Wiliam says regarding textbooks in his new book Embedded Formative Assessment

"Textbooks play an important role in mediating between the intended curriculum and the achieved curriculum, and as a result, there has been great interest in finding out whether some textbook programs are more effective than others. Reviews in random-allocation trials of programs for reading in the early grades and for programs in elementary, middle, and high school math concluded that there was little evidence that changes in textbooks alone had much impact on student achievement.  It was only when the programs changed teaching practices and student interactions that a significant impact on achievement was found. (Slavin & Lake, 2008; Slavin, Lake, chambers, Cheung & Davis , 2009; Slavin, Lake, & Groff, 2009). 

emphasis mine on last sentence -  basals will do little to develop powerful teaching practices much less engage students and inspire meaningful interactions.  It is time to make the library collection THE source for content reading. 

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Ernie Cox
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