StoryTown is a core reading program published by Harcourt in 2008 for grades K-6. It uses a theme-based organization and addresses the five essential elements of reading through whole and small group instruction, literacy centers, and assessments. The program provides differentiated materials for various reading levels. It includes explicit and systematic phonics instruction in early grades with some lessons in later grades. Skills and strategies are spiraled throughout with a reading-writing connection using mentor texts. While the program incorporates research-based vocabulary and comprehension activities, it has been criticized for its reliance on large group phonics instruction instead of small groups.

1. By Shea McInerney for EDU 533 at Gordon College
A Review of StoryTown
A Core Reading Program
from Harcourt School Publishers

2. Description of StoryTownA core reading program for K-6 classrooms
Differentiated instruction and resource kits for
Challenge, Tier 2, and ELL
Intervention Station for Tier 3
Features theme organization
Respected authors: Isabel Beck and Roger Farr
Published by Harcourt in 2008

3. Instructional DesignAddresses the 5 essential elements of reading: phonemic
awareness, phonics, fluency, “robust vocabulary”, &
comprehension
Whole-group & small-group instruction, individual
conferences, & literacy centers
Divided by grade level (aimed at Tier 1) with differentiation
for students above or below level
2 + 2, Then Review
Ongoing assessments: lesson & theme tests, & benchmarks

4. Scope & Sequence
Explicit, systematic phonemic awareness & phonics
instruction K-2 with some phonics lessons in the
upper grades
“Spiraling” instruction & practice in skills &
strategies related to the 5 elements of reading
From pre-decodables, read-alouds, & decodables to
leveled readers, trade books, & content-area reading
Reading-writing connection with mentor texts,
instruction in the writing process & the 6 traits

5. Examples
Kindergarten theme 1: All About Me (5 weeks)
2 + 2: make predictions (focus skill) & summarize (focus
strategy) + make predictions (focus skill) & reread (focus
strategy) (skills & strategies for comprehension)
Other tested skills: phonological awareness (segmenting
sentences into words, syllable blending, & syllable seg., &
deletion), phonics (/m/m, /s/s, /r/r, & /t/t), & high­frequency
words (I, a, my)
Theme resources (literature selections, pre-decodable books,
& additional resources), leveled resources, & digital &
online materials
Suggestions for whole-group reading instruction, small-group
or differentiated reading instruction, literacy center activities,
and whole-group writing instruction

6. Research & Evaluation
Intervention Station “significantly increases the
reading skills and strategy use of lower achieving
readers” (ERIA, 2008)
“Robust vocabulary” selections & activities assessed for
fidelity to research by StoryTown authors Isabel Beck
and Margaret McKeown
Criticized for its reliance on large-group instruction for
phonemic awareness (the NRP found that small-group
instruction is more effective) and failure to incorporate
feedback on mouth movements (Dewitz, 2010)

7. References
Beck, I., Farr, R., & Strickland, D. (2008). StoryTown. Harcourt
School Publishers.
Dewitz, P. (2010). The Essential Guide to Selecting and Using Core
Reading Programs. International Reading Association.
Beck, M., Cruse, K., & Fernandez, J. (2008). A control/experimental
group study of the instructional effectiveness of harcourt storytown:
intervention station program. Educational Research Institute of
America
Updegraff, N. (2008). Resource Notebook for Administrators and
Coaches. Harcourt.
http://www.harcourtschool.com/storytown/storysampler/
index.html (2013).