— S  U  M  M  A  R  Y —
Emphasis on mastery of phonics reading skills in Grade 1 ESL programs approved for 2004 local Texas adoption

This analysis assumes that students entering first grade have no English reading skills, because Texas does not require kindergarten.

 
AVENUES – Phonics Street
Hampton Brown ©2004
MOVING INTO ENGLISH
Harcourt ©2005
ON OUR WAY TO ENGLISH
Rigby ©2004
decodability1
of main program
(except for phonics component)		 54%
(12 Student Edition stories)

66%
(12 Take-Home Books)

45%
(2 Big Books plus Practice Book pages)
—
Leveled Books and Theme Library
not submitted for Texas approval
average 55% 		51%
(30 Student Edition selections)

46%
(14 Big Book selections
plus 6 units in Practice Book)

52%
(30 Leveled Books)

average 50%
 33%
(44 Guided Reading selections)

17%
(Thematic Units: 8 Newcomer Books plus teaching masters)




average 25%
decodability1
of phonics component		 92%
(51 Read-Alone Phonics Stories)		 94%
(24 Decodable Books)		 61%
(33 Phonics and Decodable Stories)
opportunities2
to read decodable text		 57 33 15
comprehensiveness3
of phonics instruction		 93% 80% 50%
comparative intensiveness4
of practice of selected sound spellings		 100% 67% 46%
integration
of phonics teaching instructions
into the main program		 Phonics instructions
located in separate
Phonics Street Teacher's Guide		 Phonics instructions divided among
½ page in Teacher Edition and
Routine Cards, Practice Book,
and Teacher's Resource Book		 Phonics instructions
located in separate section
of Teacher's Guide
total overall ranking >> BETTER FAIR POOR
1 DECODABILITY:  For each series we added phonetically regular words, all of whose sounds have been taught so far in Grade 1, plus phonetically irregular words taught so far in Grade 1, and divided by the total number of words in each reading selection.

2 OPPORTUNITIES:  Each story that is at least 80% decodable (see footnote 1) counts as one opportunity to read decodable text. Stories are either Student Edition readings or small take-home books. Exercises in Practice Books are not counted here.

3 COMPREHENSIVENESS:  We identified 70 basic sound-spellings often taught in Grade 1, and counted how many each program covers. Our documentation of these percentages also lists any additional sound-spellings each series teaches in Grade 1.

4 INTENSIVENESS:  We counted how often students practice (i.e., see, hear, say, and write) 3 selected sound-spellings in their introductory lessons. These percentages compare each program with Avenues – Phonics Street, which is the most intensive.

This chart is only a summary. We can also provide in-depth multi-page documentation on most of the categories listed above: Decodability of main program, Decodability of phonics component, Opportunities to read decodable text (i.e. number of stories that are at least 80% decodable), Comprehensiveness of phonics instruction, and Intensiveness of practice of selected sound-spellings.

⇓  For full documentation, contact:  ⇓