Educational Research Analysts  January 2011 Newsletter  
page
 3
PDFof both charts  
Emphasis on mastery of phonics skills in Grade 1 ESL programs approved for 2011 local Texas adoption
 TEXAS TREASURE CHEST
Macmillan ©2012
NATIONAL
GEOGRAPHIC REACH
Hampton-Brown ©2011
LONGMAN
TEXAS CORNERSTONE
Pearson ©none
ON OUR WAY
TO ENGLISH
Rigby ©2012
overall ranking ⇒ BEST FAIR FAIR WORST
decodability1
of phonics component		 90%
Decodable Readers		 86%
REACH into Phonics		 87%
Phonetic Storybooks		 85%
Fiction Phonics Readers
decodability1
of rest of program
(except for phonics component)		 75%
Leveled Readers
(Beginning level)		 61% 82% 32%
Nonfiction Vocabulary
Readers
% of student reading selections
that are at least 80% decodable		 75% 65% 78% 44%
% of student reading selections
that are at least 90% decodable		 43% 41% 40% 2%
# of phonetically-IRREGULAR words
properly taught as sight words		 82 77 39 17
# of phonetically-REGULAR words
improperly taught as sight words
before they are fully decodable		 77 255 82 142
comprehensiveness2
of phonics instruction
("LSCs"=letter-sound correspondences)		 70 of 70 LSCs
+ 27 more		 70 of 70 LSCs
+ 36 more		 58 of 70 LSCs
+ 13 more		 36 of 70 LSCs
intensiveness3 391
practice opportunities		 728
practice opportunities		 560
practice opportunities		 355
practice opportunities
Does this program's ORAL
VOCABULARY COMPONENT
alignment
consistently avoid "reading"
and/or writing undecodable words?		 YES NO No separate,
identifiable Oral
Vocabulary component		 NO
Does this program's
LANGUAGE ARTS COMPONENT
consistently avoid "reading"
and/or writing undecodable words?		 NO NO NO NO

♦ best in category        ♦ worst in category         Also see >>  Additional Comparisons chart        

1 DECODABILITY:  For each Grade 1 reading selection, we added the phonetically-regular words, all of whose sounds have been taught, plus the phonetically-irregular words that have been taught, and divided by the total number of words. The figure shown here averages all those quotients.
2 COMPREHENSIVENESS:  We identified 70 letter-sound correspondences (LSCs) often taught in Grade 1, and found how many of these each program covers. We also list all additional LSCs each program teaches in Grade 1.
3 INTENSIVENESS:  We counted how often 1st graders practice (i.e., see, hear, say, and write) three representative LSCs (m, short o, long a spelled "a-e") in their respective introductory lessons. The figure shown here is the total for those three lessons.
NOTE: This chart is only a summary. We can furnish in-depth documentation on the following areas: number of decodable words in each story/reading selection, how many sound-spellings each program teaches (comprehensiveness), practice of selected sound-spellings on introduction (intensiveness), phonics skill-development alignment with other program components, plus examples of positive and negative story content.
Publishers tout teaching aids. We stress phonics content. Publishers hype their strengths. We include their weaknesses. No textbook publisher funds us in any way. Unlike publisher sales reps, we have no monetary interest in any adoption. We have no financial stake in the textbook industry. Our support comes from individuals and a few small foundations, which to our knowledge have no ties to any textbook company.
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