Story Town or Reading Street? Which is best?

[RobynBird]

At the end of the year my school will be adopting a new reading series. So far our choices are Story Town and Reading Street. I was wondering if anyone is currently using them and what your thoughts are on that series. We are now using Scott Foresman (green) I'm not sure if it actually has a name other than S.F.
Thanks for any and all info.
We have so much to do, it's hard to say you made an appropriate choice by skimming through them.
Thanks
R. Bird

 

[finchfeeder]

Reading Street

I am not familiar with Story Town but I do like Reading Street very much - good choices of literature. My class enjoyed Reading Street.

 

[kt]

Storytown

We just started using Storytown this year. I'm enjoying the literature choices so far, and the kids are too. The amount of material is overwhelming, but I think that's always the case. We were told by the rep that if you have upper elementary kids that are reading way above grade level, that it won't be appropriate. Teachers are well-used to dealing with that problem, as no basal seems to be geared for advanced readers. The leveled readers are to be used in the small group settings, and there is great literacy center material. I would have to say that so far, I'm pretty impressed. The publisher was behind getting materials to us because they were surprised by the demand. But they are catching up nicely, and keeping ahead of demand. We also like the Robust Vocabulary. It is really strong vocabulary - but the spelling is too easy. Good luck! It's so hard to choose from the little you can see when your shopping for new curriculum!

 

[kyteacher]

Reading Street

I've never heard of Story Town but Reading Street is absolutely wonderful. It was a super close decision for us between Reading Street and Treasures.

 

[RobynBird]

Thank you for your replies. It's very hard to make these decisions.
Thanks again,
Bird

 

[luv2travel]

Those are the two series that we've narrowed our search down to also. I really liked (flipping through) the Robust Vocabulary component in Story Town and wonder if S-F is nearly as strong in that area. Has anyone used the "Challenge Box" that can be ordered with the Harcourt Stoytown? Any additional information would be greatly appreciated! Do either of the series really explicitly teach the comprehension strategies such as visuzalizing, questioning, inferring, etc? Thanks!

 

[ORteacher]

stroytown

I like the robost vocab. and whole group lessons. The ELL kit has yet to arrive The challenge box is all picture books, which would not be my choice. I use chapter books with my high kids. The problems with the leveled readers is they aren't high enough or low enough. They are all at the 3rd grade beg or end level!

 

[luv2travel]

Thanks for the info. I did notice the vocab component that Harcourt had and from a glance it seemed superior to the vocab in the Scott-Foresman. Good to hear information from those of you that have actually used them. :-) Good points on the leveled readers/Challenge box.

 

[connieg]

Reading Street vote

I absolutely love Reading Street and am still getting used to it. I also see that there are some districts that provide excellent powerpoints to go with Reading St. Haven't seen anything for Storytown.

 

[ckwong]

Technology?

We too facing the adoption decision for both of these titles. We have a great deal of technology in our school to use, so I am wondering about the technology component does either Story Town or Reading Street have their textbooks and practice books online or on a disc so we can use them with our activ board?