Introduction

INTRODUCTION ore reading programs, comprehensive literacy programs, basal programs—call them what you will, but the fact remains that the Cmajority of reading teachers in the United States use publisher- created reading programs to teach their students how to read and write. According to a recent report, almost three out of four U.S. elementary schools use basal readers (Merrow, 2012). These publisher-created reading programs run the gamut from Treasures (Macmillan/McGraw- Hill) and Reading Street (Scott Foresman) to Open Court (McGraw-Hill) and Storytown (Harcourt). Regardless of the particular product and regardless of whether they are called core reading programs or the basal, these programs permeate the U.S. educational system. We all know what they look like. Teachers who use them typically teach from a manual, use an anthology of stories, and employ practice books and worksheets to drill students in specific reading and writing skills. Students who experience these programs typically work quietly at their desks on identical assignments, take part in whole-group classroom routines, and read from the anthology as a full class or in small groups. This is not to say that publisher-created reading programs are the only game in town. Many teachers and districts still embrace teacher- constructed or student-centered programs such as readers’ workshop, guided reading, balanced literacy, and The Daily Five. While using these programs, teachers engage students with individualized classroom routines, minilessons, small-group activities, and trade books of all genres. Additional components may include literacy centers, classroom libraries, individualized spelling lists, an emphasis on reading strategies, and grammar taught via the writing of stories and essays. These process- driven and student-centered reading classrooms, however, are not the norm in the United States today. Basal reading programs are deeply rooted in our educational system. Dating all the way back to 1836, when the McGuffey Readers first appeared, and continuing through the iconic Dick and Jane series, basal programs morphed into comprehensive core reading programs and research-based literacy programs during the No Child Left Behind era. As they attempted to leave no child behind, school districts jettisoned curricula based on novels, themes, guided reading groups, and literature circles and adopted publisher-created programs based on anthologies of stories, workbooks and worksheets, and large-group instruction. Although these sprawling programs don’t contain the kitchen sink, they do contain 1 almost everything else, including spelling lists, vocabulary lists, teacher manuals, grammar worksheets, specific skill practice books, phonics programs, writing prompts, leveled readers, ideas for instructional groupings, English as a second language programming, and story and unit assessments. Whew! Now a new era is rolling round, the era of the Common Core State Standards. Much of what No Child Left Behind wrought, including accountability, high-stakes tests, and research-based reading practices, will be here to stay, even as a new set of standards is adopted by much of the nation. I suspect that basal programs will also be here to stay because school boards, administrators, and perhaps even teachers will continue to push for them, and even without an intentional push, historical inertia tends to carry past practices forward. Why You Need This Book If you’re a 75-percenter—a teacher who will use or is currently using a publisher-created core reading program—Super Core: Supercharging Your Basal Reading Program With More Reading, Writing, and Word Work has two important messages for you. First, a simple statement: A core reading program should not be your complete reading program (Dewitz, & Sullivan, 2010). Publisher-created core reading programs simply aren’t flexible enough, powerful enough, or motivating enough to enable all students to reach important reading goals. What’s more, core reading programs can create an environment A published core in which reading teachers become less effective over time instead of more effective (Baumann & reading program is not Heubach, 1996). a complete reading The second message is a call to action. program. By subtracting a few core reading program components, adding a few research-based instructional practices, and becoming mindful of a few basic content and instructional values, you can create a more effective and engaging reading program in which most students will make great progress in reading. Super Core provides direct and explicit steps for creating this success. These steps can be of a gradual nature. You’re free to take a couple of small steps this year, a few next year, and a few more after that. Three or four years into the journey, you will have left much of your manual behind, rid yourself of most “drill and kill” worksheets, and rocketed off to a world where students are engaged in reading and writing because they love to read and write. Yes, it will take some years to accomplish this goal, but if you sit back and enjoy the process, the journey will be 2 a rewarding one. After all, what’s better than seeing struggling readers transformed into strong and capable readers? The Rocket Ship Analogy I’d like you to think of a reading program as a rocket ship. At the tip of this rocket sits the capsule, and in this capsule sits some very precious cargo: your students! Every teacher wants his or her rocket ship to be powerful enough to overcome gravity (all the reading difficulties that hold students down), reach escape velocity (the point at which students move from learning to read to reading to learn), and gain orbit (the free-floating state of reading independence in which students never fall back to earth). When it comes to reading rocket ships, districts can choose from any number of vehicles. Some teachers and districts choose to assemble their own ship. First, they choose an excellent how-to teacher reference book, such as Guided Reading: Good First Teaching for All Children by Fountas and Pinnell (1996) or The Daily Five: Fostering Literacy Independence in the Elementary Grades by Boushey and Moser (2006). They read and read, effectively becoming rocket scientists, and then they begin to build their own rocket. They purchase trade books, leveled readers, and book bins. They build classroom libraries and put together browsing boxes. They create classroom reading routines, teach them to their students, and display the routines on posters in their rooms. And they model, practice, formatively assess, and then do it all again and again. These build-your-own reading programs are effective, and many teachers wouldn’t want to teach any other way. Why? The process of teaching these programs is interesting, creative, and challenging. More importantly, by the end of the school year, teachers see most of their students floating serenely in reading orbit. About 75% of districts, however, choose to go with the ready-made rocket ship (a.k.a. one of the various publisher-created programs). Truth be told, there are positives to this type of ship. First of all, because someone else built it, the ship is ready to launch. All a district has to do is go to “Rockets-R-Us” and buy one very large box! A prebuilt ship saves teachers and administrators a lot of time. Second, if a teacher is very busy, poorly trained, or new to the field of teaching, the publisher-created ship is easy to launch and fly. Simply follow the directions in the manual. Once the ship is launched, the teacher can turn control over to the manual, and the ship flies along on autopilot. Third, districts like ready-made reading programs because (a) the teachers become well acquainted with the materials because they are 3 available for use year after year; (b) the program provides consistency across the grade levels and between district buildings; (c) the terms scientifically based and research-based are stamped all over the materials, which lends an air of validity to the program; and (d) the program often comes with consultants who provide technical assistance and professional development to the teachers implementing it. Fourth, a publisher-created ship contains many, if not most, of the basic components needed for any effective reading program. This means that if the program is used well, it will lift a lot of the district’s students at least partway up the gravity well. It also means that school boards and administrators gain a sense of security because the rocket looks so impressive. Surely, such a large and complex ship is also powerful and effective! As we know, looks can be deceiving. There are downsides to publisher-produced rocket ships, and the downsides are big. Although the ship looks impressive, it has so many bells and whistles that it’s difficult to determine which parts work effectively and which do not. Some components are skipped over because there simply isn’t time to teach everything, no matter what publishers and administrators say, and over time other components are minimized until they are no longer used. And in some ships, the engines are of an inferior quality. This means the rocket doesn’t have enough thrust to push all the students into orbit. More than a few will fall back to earth. Ouch! On occasion, teachers and administrators realize their basal rocket isn’t working very well, but they don’t know how to correct problems because no one bothered to learn the basics of rocket science! They’ve never been trained to strip down the engines and build them back up to be more efficient or to reboot the onboard computer when it goes down, so educators attempt to patch the problems by adding a bunch of secondary components and programs. What they don’t realize is that their attempts to preserve their core program in its entirety and use it with fidelity, while simultaneously minimizing its ineffectiveness, are mutually exclusive activities.

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