Moving toward Change: The Literature-Based First-Grade Basals.

A study examined literature-based stories found in first-grade student anthologies (basals), the adaptations made to those stories, and any award-winning stories found in that literature. Four current reading series were examined: Houghton Mifflin, Scott Foresman, Macmillan/McGraw Hill, and Harcourt Brace Jovanovich. The difference in the proportion of literature-based stories, the differences in the proportion of trade book stories adapted and the types of adaptations, and the difference in the proportion of award-winning literature between the 1987 editions and the 1993 editions were examined. Results indicated that: (1) in 1987, 17% of the stories in the first-grade basals were literature-based, while in 1993 that proportion increased to 87%; (2) in 1987, 92% of the trade book stories in the basal were adapted, with sentence-level adaptions being the most common type, while in 1993, 14% of the trade book stories included in the basal readers included adaptions; and (3) in 1987 and in 1993, only 5% of the total proportion of literature won an award. (Contains 26 references and 5 tables of data.) (RS)