Books used to teach schoolchildren reading now focus too much on cultural diversity and not enough on laying a foundation for reading, writing and thinking, a Harvard researcher who has studied three generations of textbooks said.
"Children hop from culture to culture, century to century,'' Sandra Stotsky, a deputy commissioner of the Massachusetts education department and a research associate at Harvard University's graduate school of education, said Friday. "You are not introducing them to a good literary foundation. You are introducing them to linguistic chaos.''

Stotsky analyzed test scores and examined dozens of textbooks, published for decades by a variety of companies. In first through sixth grades, pupils are expected to increase their vocabularies and hone analytical skills they will need for science, math and literature courses facing them in junior high school and high school.

Stotsky said cultural diversity is dealt with best after children have mastered the basics of language.

Multiculturalism refers to schools' efforts since the 1970s to cater to pupils of diverse backgrounds by including their history and culture in lessons formerly focused on Europe and North America.

Stotsky's research comes as policy-makers deal with low scores on reading tests, employers' complaints about high school graduates and growing college remedial classes. She said new reading books are squeezing in diversity by simplifying vocabulary and shortening sentences and paragraphs.

"The stories also confuse young children with foreign words and phrases that take up additional instruction time and attempt to shape their views on race, sex, class and disability," Stotsky told a luncheon sponsored by the Institute for Research in English Acquisition and Development.

Adventure tales like "Black Beauty'' and "Sindbad the Sailor'' have been replaced by selections on World War II-era Japanese-American internment camps, Stotsky said.

She said she didn't expect the same problems with character education, a program popular with conservatives that uses lessons to stress trustworthiness, respect and other values.

"There isn't any special cultural or ethnic vocabulary that goes with character education,'' she said. "You can find certain virtues - friendship, self-discipline - in a multitude of literary selections.