Teasures: A Basal Reader

Basal Readers are highly organized reading textbooks used to teach reading and associated skills to students. Stories are chosen to illustrate and develop specific reading skills, which are taught in a strict, pre-determined sequence. Basal readers contain stories in which limited vocabulary is introduced in a controlled fashion from a certain word list and these vocabulary words gradually escalate in difficulty.

Special features of basal readers:

• Comprehension questions and student assignments following each story. 
• Supplementary materials such as: 
• Workbooks 
• Activity sheets/activities 
• "Teacher Editions"

Mt. Hope Elementary utilizes the Macmillan/McGraw-Hill "Treasures" basal.


The students seem to enjoy reading from their Treasure Textbook. They often pull them out of their desks during their independent reading. This fourth grade basal emphasizes many important themes in their lives.


Some of those themes are:

1. Taking a Stand 
2. Making a Difference 
3. Relationships

I believe a Basal Reader, when used as a supplemental resource in a literacy framework, can have it's benefits. However, if a basal, such as "Treasures" were stringently followed, I do not feel that students would be receiving a developmentally appropriate literacy education. I feel that a more authentic, holistic approach that incorporates a variety of literacy resources (a basal included) and aligns with a comprehensive/balanced literacy framework would be more advantageous.