Beginning Reading Materials: A National Survey of Primary Teachers’ Reported Uses and Beliefs

This study examined the opinions of more than 300 primary teachers. The first pur-pose of the study was to investigate the reported frequency with which teachers used various beginning reading materials (e.g., literature, basals, workbooks, predictable text, leveled text, decodable text, and vocabulary-controlled text). The second pur-pose of the study was to inspect how instructional purposes, state text policies, pro-grams, grade levels, and freedom of choice influenced reported uses. The results sug-gested that teachers of beginning readers use many different types of materials and are guided primarily by instructional purposes rather than programs or grade levels. Teachers reported using decodable text and literature for very particular instructional purposes but reportedly used other materials less specifically. Respondents in states with strong text mandates, like Texas and California, did differ from respondents in other states. In sum, the results suggested that teachers believed that different materi-als can serve different purposes with different readers. In the late 1990s, both Texas and California made considerable changes in their re-quirements for beginning reading materials by requiring texts to be decodable (California English/Language Arts Committee, 1999; Texas Education Agency, 1997). These changes reversed earlier policies that emphasized literary merit in be-ginning reading materials and condemned contrived materials (California English/ Language Arts Committee, 1987; Texas Education Agency, 1990). The reversal of policies sparked a major shift in the reading textbook market, which affected thou-sands of children across the country (Hiebert, Menon, & Martin, 2005; Hoffman