The purpose of this content analysis study was to identify opportunities embedded in selected reading programs that facilitate the development of social and emotional competencies in the context of literacy instruction. These competencies have been shown to strengthen academic performance and help children learn skills that accelerate success inside and outside of the classroom. The content analysis examined three commonly used third-grade core reading programs to identify content that focuses on social and emotional competencies and instructional processes important in teaching social and emotional skills to children. The study also sought to identify content and instructional processes that might be strengthened in the curriculum to provide greater opportunities for social and emotional growth. As a part of the investigation of core reading programs, current market information was used to identify the most recent editions of the most widely used core reading programs in the U.S.

Classroom teachers are provided instructional recommendations for teaching reading from their adopted core reading programs (CRPs). Explicit instruction elements or what is also called instructional moves, including direct explanation, modeling, guided practice, independent practice, discussion, feedback, and monitoring, were examined within CRP reading lessons. This study sought to answer the question: What elements of explicit instruction or instructional moves are included in the five most widely published CRP teachers’ edition lessons across five essential components of reading instruction? A content analysis of reading lessons in first, third, and fifth grades within current (copyright 2005-2010), widely used CRPs was conducted to determine the number and types of explicit instruction elements or instructional moves recommended within reading lessons for the following essential components of reading instruction: phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension. Findings offer several implications for publishers of CRPs and educators. First, guided practice was recommended most often in CRP lessons. Second, all five publishers were more similar than different in the number and types of explicit instruction elements or instructional move recommendations. All publishers rarely recommended the use of the explicit instruction elements of feedback and monitoring. Conversely, the explicit instruction elements or instructional moves of discussion and questioning were used almost to the exclusion of other elements of explicit instruction for comprehension lessons. It was also found that the recommendations to use elements of explicit instruction diminished from the lower to the upper grades—offering intermediate-grade teachers fewer explicit instruction recommendations.

Core reading programs (CRPs) provide the curriculum and guide reading instruction for many classroom teachers. The purpose of this study was to conduct a content analysis of reading fluency instruction in current (2008-2011 copyright) grade 2 and 3 top-selling core reading program lessons to answer the following two research questions: (1) How do core reading programs recommend that fluency skills be taught? (2) How do reading fluency instructional practices in core programs compare to evidence-based reading fluency instructional practices defined in current research? The results of the analysis revealed that fluency instruction is more prevalent in current core reading programs than reported in previous content analyses and that the recommendations for fluency instruction are somewhat aligned with the findings of the National Reading Panel (NRP). All lessons coded focused on one of four characteristics of a fluent reader (i.e., rate, accuracy, expression, and/or comprehension). However, more lessons focused on expression than the other three categories. Second, current CRPs incorporated guided oral reading procedures; almost half of lessons included some type of explanation, modeling, and/or guided practice from a teacher or peer; however, reading with a partner was more prevalent than reading with the teacher (choral and echo reading). Also, more than half of the lessons included the use of repeated reading procedures; however, several CRPs suggested that students read the text more than the recommended three to four times. Last, the near absence of lessons that suggest the practice of independent silent reading also reflect the NRP’s findings that neither recommended nor endorsed its use in the classroom. More recent research reports no significant effect differences of guided wide reading (one time reading of text) and scaffolded silent reading of texts over guided oral repeated reading of texts. The five current CRPs did not recommend the use of either of these two practices.