I wrote this to Sean today in the comments section but it is of sufficient importance to repeat here:
Sean what you say about reading here is of immense importance. Years ago I suggested to my colleagues here in DPS that those novels HAVE TO GO, and since there have been and still are people – I won’t mention whom – who are heavily financially invested in those chapter books/”novels” and that those people have “sold” their importance to already-confused CI teachers, it has been a real rip-off. The lower level novels need to be first used – at the earliest – in level 2. Then what do they read in level 1? They read the tableaux and stories THAT THEY CREATED when going around the Star. Sheesh. I could get going on how financial interest in the form of those readers has pulled much of the potential of the CI movement out of it and turned a lot of people off to CI. Think about it – CI teachers, who lack a real way to reach kids in the most important area of listening input, have defaulted to making reading the novels more important in level 1 than the listening input. That is malpractice. Tons of listening MUST precede reading. And yet the leaders of the CI movement, going for the dollars, have sold out teachers new to CI.