Books for Bhutan

May 29, 2010 5:14 AM

YANM teacher, YANM parent, but which english textbooks would you recommend for grades K-6?

I'm looking for examples of English textbooks (or a series of books) that do a good job integrating vocab, grammar, reading comprehension, etc, etc for grades K-6, to be used as classroom materials. (To clarify: not one massive book, not necessarily even one single series.)

Why?

I work in Bhutan and we're hoping to find some high-quality examples that we can use as a jumping-off point for a more local curriculum.

I know that textbooks for grades K-6 are very rarely used (at least, this was true when I grew up), but if you have any stellar examples that you could point me toward, I would be more than grateful.

Thanks!

posted by Suciu to Education (2 answers total)

I learned to read, learned grammar, spelling, comprehension, etc. from The McGuffy Readers. There are about 6-7 books in the series, starting out with a primer which introduces you to the alphabet, simple words and sentences. I absolutely love these books and use them in teaching my own children. They are simple and effective.
posted by Sassyfras at 7:39 AM on May 29, 2010

They're not books, but I've used the SRA Reading Lab in my classroom (1st grade-3rd grade), and liked it. They're very short stories with followup questions that deal with comprehension, vocabulary, grammar, parts of speech - pretty much what you're looking for. They start at the pre-K level and go through high school, though you'd need multiple sets for this. I like them for 2 big reasons. First, they can be individualized for the child - one 2nd grader could be on orange level and another 2nd grader on lime level. Second, after some initial lessons on using the system and recording answers in the workbook, the children can work mostly independently. After the first few weeks, I typically only got questions when a child encountered a new type of question section or didn't understand something.

I wouldn't use this as the only English curriculum, but it would be a good piece of one.
posted by booksherpa at 11:02 AM on May 29, 2010