Investigating Visual Displays in Basal Reading Textbooks.

ABSTRACT A study was conducted to identify, describe, and analyze the visual displays accompanying *nstruct'sonal texts in basal reading series. Specifically, the study reviewed 1,884 displays from the student textbooks, major workbooks, and teachers' editions of six series used from grades four through eight to answer (1) descriptive questions about the location, original data source, specific knowledge domains, types, and formats of the displays; and (2) instructional questions about the purposes for completing a visual display task, the number and types of questions about displays given to students, whether instruction was provided along with the displays, whether characteristics of displays were taught, and whether enrichment activities were offered. The results suggest that while visual displays can be used to enhance higher order comprehension tasks, they most often do not in basal texts. Visual displays were wore likely to be used for drill and practice or with specialized skills sections in students' workbooks. There was a paucity of higher level questions that required students to interpret and evaluate displays. (FL)