Basal/Anthology Approach

Basal/Anthology Approach

1. advantages of basals

   • convenient package
     • materials
     • techniques
     • assessment devices
   • gradually increase in difficulty
     • steady progression from emergent literacy
   • varied reading selections
   • abundance of practice material
   • carefully planned units and lessons
   • wealth of follow up and enrichment activities

2. disadvantages of basals

   • base of materials for students to move through
     • students have diverse interest and abilities
     • students progress at different rates
   • how basal readers are assembled
     • anthologies and often contain excerpts from whole books
   • too much of a good thing
     • stories and poems are overtaught
     • too many questions asked before and after selection is read
     • too many follow up activities
   • suggested organizational pattern
     • core selections in anthologies
       • presented to whole class
     • supplementary reading in libraries of leveled readers

3. adapting basals

   • should be viewed as a resource
     • use suggestions and activities that are appropriate and effective
     • keep in mind needs and interest of students
   • use workbooks and other practice materials judiciously
   • emphasize wide reading of a variety of materials
   • focus on a few key skills or strategies
   • provide opportunities for struggling readers to read appropriate level material every day
   • gradually take control of your literacy program

4. mini-book series

   • ease into reading
   • move from emergent to fluent reading
   • drawbacks
     • texts at early levels do not adequately reinforce decoding patters
     • not decodable
   • supplements to basal or other approaches

5. closing the gap: providing better reinforcement

   • intervention group
     • caught up in just 15 weeks
     • series of 150 mini-books
       • designed to reinforce phonics patters
       • no written in the sing song fashion of some decodable texts
       • gradually became more challenging
     • greater variety of words
       • 500 to 1000 words per week
   • basal group
     • typical basal reader
     • 250 words per week
     • reread same story several times