Buyer – Be informed

Peer into any classroom, grade level, school, or state, and you’re sure to find reading curriculum materials purchased from an educational publishing company. In fact, nearly three-quarters of U.S. elementary schools and teachers use core reading programs (Education Market Research, 2010). As is often the case, curriculum materials come and go, swinging back and forth with the educational pendulum. Publishing companies work hard to keep up, often just reorganizing, relabeling, and adding in more current technology to produce what they like to tout as new editions that are “the answer to schools’ academic woes.”

Unfortunately, “live and learn” often becomes the mantra that accompanies curricular purchases as schools serve as a revolving door for new programs and materials. Districts make purchases and then play the waiting game to see how those materials work for staff and students alike, sometimes collecting formal data but most often measuring the success in informal ways. But the bottom line is this: No one has found the holy grail of reading products, one that outperforms every other instructional material on the market in terms of student achievement on a large scale across demographics and teaching situations. No product is perfect. Three experiences with buying new materials — specifically, for reading instruction and intervention — have taught me some valuable lessons.

I once worked with a large, suburban district that purchased a computer-based, teacher-supported reading curriculum for middle and high school students who struggled in reading. Teachers and interventionists were provided with guidelines that required strong fidelity to the program.