Note to readers: I did this by myself at the school because I wanted to compare the instruction at the school vs. my instruction with SSRW. No one asked me to do this and honestly, no one cared about this analysis! Perhaps this will interest you! 🙂

Analysis Harcourt Brace,

Storytown Basal Reader

By Christine Calabrese, Reading Specialist

December 2010

“The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” Albert Einstein

STORYTOWN

5 readers -assorted “decodable readers

10 Assessments -leveled readers

Implicit Phonics -workbooks

Paper/Pencil (single sensory)

Analysis of the Readers:

Please note that PP= PrePrimer Dolch Word, P= Primer Dolch Word, 1st= 1st Grade Dolch Word, 2nd = 2nd Grade Dolch Word, and 3rd=3rd Grade Dolch Word.

First Reader: (1.1)

Direct Instruction: Short a, Short i, “ed” at the end of a verb.

“High Frequency Words”: “who (P), let’s, help (PP), now (P), in (PP), too (P), no (P), so (P), hold (3rd), get (P), home, soon, oh, late, yes, much,

find, thank, some (P), make (PP), of (1st), how (1st)” 22 “High Frequency Words” -13 Dolch words- 2 First Grade words

Except for “of” and “oh”, ALL these words are decodable words and should NOT be taught in isolation.

Other words without decoding instruction found in this reader: “we”, “I”, and all the rest of the words devoted to various skills.

This reader introduces the use of “ed” at the end of a verb; this is a huge problem in reading for kids. Students mispronounce this ending repeatedly because there is no direct instruction in “ed”. This is a difficult concept and requires that the student already have a certain amount of fluency in reading in order to grasp the subtleties of this verb ending: sometimes “ed” says “t” as in “locked”, sometimes it says “ed” as in “hunted”, sometimes it says “d” as in “timed” – also a spelling rule needs to be covered with this ending. These sorts of things can throw off a beginning reader and shows that the authors were not at all careful with this reader or perhaps worse yet, they did not know!

All the readers add poetry, “Focus Skills”, “Social Studies”, and Stories about the author and illustrators which are not decodable for beginning readers. It’s so important for a beginning reader to remain confident and build upon all knowledge. This reader runs the risk of frustrating the slower students in the classroom.

Of course this reader looks nice, but it is not ideal for the beginning reader who needs a step-by-step well-ordered system in learning to read.

Second Reader: (1.2)

Direct Instruction: Short /e/, short /o/

The /th/, /ing/, /all/, /or/, /sh/, /ong/, and long vowel words are all just splashed into the reading without explicit instruction in decoding.

“High Frequency Words” : “day, said (PP) , eat, first (2nd), time, was (P), don’t(2nd), says, water, Mr., new(P), line, her(1st), live(1st), does (2nd), grow(3rd), many(2nd), be (P), food, school, every(1st), your(2nd), feet, use, arms, head, way, very(2nd), cold(2nd), fish, their(2nd), from (1st), animals, under(P), could(1st), happy, gold, night, saw, came(P), made(2nd), were”

42 “High Frequency Words” -21 Dolch Words, 5 First Grade Dolch Words – except for: “said”, “was”, “says”, “live”, “does”, and “from”, ALL the “high frequency” words are fully decodable.

This second reader is a repeat of the previous reader, however, the reading material is more complex. This is where your slower learners will not be able to keep pace. The authors have provided “decodable readers” which are really small booklets with decodable words. The authors, however, never give direct instruction on many graphemes and their corresponding phonemes which are required for independent reading.

Third Reader: (1.3)

Direct instruction /ar/, /ow/, /oa/

The /ch/, (both “ch for chocolate and ch for Christmas sounds are in these stories), /tch/, /th/ (the voiced and unvoiced are in these stories), /gh/ words (night), /y/ at the end of words, /ph/ and /ur/ are all found randomly in the stories in this reader.

The /ow/ makes two sounds (/ow/as in owl, and /ow/ as in snow) and ought to be taught with both sounds in mind otherwise the reader will confuse the two sounds. /oa/ is just a two-vowel combination and ought to be taught along with all the two-vowel combinations.

“High Frequency Words”: “grew, fly (1st), air, friends, play(PP), need, watch, rain, feel, put(P), house, Mrs., say(P), loud, again (1st ), know(1st), books, about(3rd), read, work, writing, people, family, name, cow’s, nice, by(1st), please, join, always(2nd), room, would(3rd), carry(3rd), other, money, buy(2nd), paint, paper, our(P), pretty, surprise, over(1st), three(PP), mouse”

44 “High Frequency Words” – 15 Dolch Words – 4 First Grade Words.

The only word in this list that is NOT decodable given proper instruction is: “would’.

This reader has more difficult words to decode however the authors do not give systematic instruction in how to decode these words.

Fourth Reader: (1.4)

Direct Instruction in the “i-e” and “a-e” patterns.

The /wh/, two-vowel words, /ee/, /ea/, /oo/ (as in spoon), a-e, i-e, /dge/, /er/, /or/, /ur/, /gh/ (neighbors- rule here “ei” says long “a” before gh) are all randomly found in stories.

The authors should simply teach the silent-e rule including ALL words that fall under this category, “e-e”, “o-e”, “u-e” so that the reader can decode all words found in this pattern.

“High Frequency Words” – “dear”, “sky”, “mother”, “told”, “hurry”, “door”, “should”, “cool”, “warm”, “dry”, “place”, “holes”, “four(P)”, “move”, “found(2nd)”, “near”, “hears”, “might”, “open(1st)”, “gone”, “around(2nd)”, “tired”, “walked”, “light(3rd)”, “because(2nd)”, “those(2nd)”, “right(2nd)”, “love”, “city”, “hello”, “loudly”, “brown(P)”, “pulled”, “remembered”, “visitor”, “high”, “become”, “busy”, “listen”, “talk”, “eyes” –

41 “High Frequency Words” – 9 Dolch Words, 1 First Grade Word.

Out of these 41 words only “mother”, “should”, “four”, “gone”, “love” are “rule breaker words”. The rest of these words are fully decodable given proper decoding instruction and should not be taught as “sight words”.

This Reader is more complicated, but instruction does not support the complexities presented in this reader. These authors are expecting that the beginning reader will have a light bulb go on in his or her head and suddenly learn how to read without explicit instruction.

Fifth Reader: (1.5)

Direct Instruction is given for the silent e words.

The following sounds are found randomly in the reading material: /ar/, /er/, /u-e/, /c=s followed by e, i, y/, /ing/, two-vowel words, /ur/, /ar/ =/or/ when after ‘w’”, /ph/, /ay/ = long ‘a’ sound”, /or/, /sh/, /ow/= long /o/ sound as in snow”, /tch/, /gh/, /ung/, /ong/, /ch/, /ou,/ /ow/, /a/ says /ah/ for father”, /ew/, “ed” at the end of a word, “long /o/ sound as in mold”, /ch/ = /sh/, /y/ = long /e/ at the end of a word”, /oo/ as in spoon”, /th/ – unvoiced”, /ir/, /gh/ at the end of the word, silent /w/ at the beginning of words. .

“High Frequency” Words: “color”, “hair”, “clear”, “toes”, “kinds”, “only(3rd)”, “good-bye”, “climbed”, “thought”, “Earth”, “fooling”, “table”, “baby”, “heard”, “answered”, “pushed”, “pools”, “together(3rd)”, “done(3rd)”, “great”, “traveled”, “took”, “able”, “poured”, “blue”, “almost”, “toward”, “boy”, “welcoming”, “building”, “tomorrow”, “any(1st)”, “nothing”, “sorry”, “ready”, “front”.

36 “High Frequency Words”- 3 Dolch Words No First Grade Words. Only, “done”, “great”, “building”, and “ready” are rule breaker words and are not decodable.

This reader is obviously the most complex, however, there is little support for the phonemic complexities added into this book.

Conclusion:

The Harcourt Brace, Storytown Basal Readers do NOT employ a direct, systematic approach to teaching reading. The reader does use some spelling to back-up phonetic instruction; however, implicit NOT explicit phonics instruction is the thrust of this Basal. The Storytown readers with a total of 185 “High Frequency Words” are placing much of the burden of learning to read on the beginning reader. These “High Frequency Words” do not correspond to the Dolch Sight Word list. (Where did the authors find these words?) There is simply NOT enough direct, systematic instruction on how to decode, what to decode and when to decode and practice, practice, practice in individual skills. In addition, the Storytown Basal, throws in many words which are not given attention to decoding skills, therefore leaving the student to believe that most of written English is not decodable.

The underlying paradigm of this reading program is “teach the students to read words, gain a large portfolio of “sight words” in their minds and they will learn to read”, this is the “look-say” method and is exactly the opposite of what the research says to do. English IS NOT an ideographic language, it is an alphabetic language with 97.4% of all words that follow systematic, rules, which can and MUST be learned and relearned in order for students to become fluent readers. Instead of building a collection of “words” to be recited and memorized at random, emphasis needs to be placed on developing a wide range of decoding skills. Included in this is spelling, which is an absolute must for good reading and writing ability.

The authors of Storytown also place a big thrust on “comprehension skills”, however, they have missed the MOST essential key ingredient to excellent comprehension ability; that is, fluency including efficient prosody.

Over and over again I hear teachers telling their students to “read at home”, but is it fair to place the burden of learning to read and reading on a student and their parents? Shouldn’t the school’s first and foremost mission be teaching students HOW TO read?

So if not the basal, how do we teach students to read? The research is clear; explicit, direct, systematic instruction is a MUST for beginning readers. Trained teachers who know HOW to teach reading is a MUST as well. Teachers MUST be trained and retrained and monitored by someone who can guide and instruct because they themselves have done it many times before. Teachers want to teach, but their training in college is greatly lacking in reading pedagogy (this is a documented fact).

The Sing, Spell, Read & Write program written by Sue Dickson is the very, best way to teach a child to read, write and spell. It is efficient, develops excellent decoding skills in students and is a positive experience for the student and teacher. Learning decoding skills is not at all dull, nor difficult with this system. EVERY child, even the slowest, learns to read with this system. A good reading program must reach every student, not just those who easily pick up and read.

Teachers MUST be trained and monitored for maximum classroom instruction in Sing, Spell, Read & Write. Can we teach every child to read? Absolutely, but it takes good training and follow-up with our teachers.

PS 106 K

Beginning Reading Instruction

The students are seated facing each other. Teachers must use an easel to write on instead of a chalkboard. The writing on the easel is much smaller than it should be; therefore you have students who simply can’t see the writing on the board.

About half of all classrooms walls are devoted to a “word wall” and teachers have leveled readers in their classroom. Over and over again, I hear and see teachers having students read words in isolation, drilling students on words. Instead of spending time teaching their students the keys to decoding, they waste their time; frustrate the kids with recitation of long lists of words. This is the implementation of the “look-say” method and again is neither necessary nor scientific.

Teachers practice “DEAR” and assign reading at home, but without equipping the students with the ability to read, again this is a futile exercise. Teachers want the parents to “spend time reading with” their kids because they simply don’t have time for the ones who are not picking up. But is this fair, to place this huge burden on the parents, who may themselves be struggling readers? Isn’t it the job of the school to teach all students to read, write and spell?

What the teachers don’t realize is that they are teaching “reading” as a memorization challenge rather than giving the students the tools to read themselves. This is the old “look-say” method which began in 1930 with Dick and Jane. Thankfully, English is NOT an ideographic language, 97.4 percent of our language is decodable and 62% of these decodable words are short vowel words. We can and must teach reading properly. We can sound out our words, but we must teach our teachers how to do this. You just don’t say, “Sound it out!” without giving in depth instructions on how to sound it out.

Teachers blame parents, but the parents cannot help them, nor should they be required to teach their kids to read. This is the job of the school.

The leveled readers are from Teachers College model which is simply a repackaging of the Whole Language Method. No surprise that this program lost steam; it simply is the antithesis of proper reading instruction

The word wall is there to reinforce to the children that they have to memorize the entire English Language. This is a very poor way of teaching students to read.

When the students are writing they are looking over their shoulders, having to transpose letters and words written on small sheets. This presents a huge problem for students who have dyslexic tendencies, or students whose handwriting is not well-established. Students WILL reverse letters and get confused easily doing this, not to mention the huge distraction sitting across from peers presents. This is not a good way for the beginning reader and writer to become proficient.

As far as spelling, teachers are using the spelling tests to reinforce “sight words”. Students are flooded with difficult sight words to spell and memorize, without any tools of how to decode them. Spelling, if you want to use it as a tool for reading, ought to be a reinforcement of phonics. All words ought to be easily decodable and easy to spell. This helps the students learn to hear the sounds of the letters and associate them with their phonemes. Teachers also, need to work on their own pronunciation of phonemes. You can’t spell a word properly if your teacher is pronouncing it incorrectly. It’s important to be able to hear the sounds clearly and properly. (Again teachers MUST be trained and retrained in this, it is not their fault, and it’s a matter of good training, that’s all).

These teachers are good, hard working, teachers, they are devoted to teaching properly, and these teachers simply need lots of training, support and guidance.

Unfortunately, the students at P.S. 106K will continue to struggle, the teachers will continue to be frustrated until a full implementation of a direct, systematic, reading program is implemented in this school. No matter how hard these teachers work, they will continue to have only small successes because the method chosen to teach their students to read is not scientifically based.

“Your reading program is only as good as your low-group. If you’re losing your low group, find a program that works!” Sue Dickson author Sing, Spell, Read & Write