Basal Reader Review

The basal reader used in field experience was the second grade Reading Street by Scott
Foresman. A chart called Priority Skills was in the beginning of the basal. It outlined the major
skills that the basal covered. It also identified which chapter and story the skill could be found
and if the skill was being taught or reviewed. The skills were organized under comprehension,
phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency and vocabulary. The basal was organized into six units.
Each unit was taught in five weeks. Each unit is centered on a theme and contains five major
stories.
I would use this basal as a resource. It could be a progress tool to measure my pace and to
ensure that I am teaching everything that the students will need to know the next year. The basal
would also give me a consistent language for instruction that would match the curriculum of the
school. There are many resources to help teach and reinforce the topics in the main story. There
are too many resources to include each one. I would choose the resources that best fit the needs
of my students. The basal offered three teaching resources that I would look at more closely:
assessment checkpoints, differentiated instruction for intervention and advanced students, and
writing rubrics. These resources would help manage my instruction and assessment. The basal
also had suggestions for integrating the skills and units with science and social studies
instruction.
The basal is based on an autonomous, skill-building model. It is phonics-oriented not
based on literature. The curriculum is scripted every day of the week for whole and small group
instruction. It aligns with the priority skills of the National Reading Panel. This basal, if used as
intended, would fall under the bottom-up theory of literacy development.