Analysing Reading-Focused Activities in a Grade VIII English Textbook: Evidence from Government Schools in Assam

Textbooks serve as primary instructional resources in contexts with limited teaching materials and play a central role in achieving curriculum goals (Li & Wang, 2024; Stara et al., 2017). Given this central role, the design and quality of literacy activities included in a textbook become crucial for supporting learners’ literacy development. This study examines reading-focused activities in the Grade VIII SCERT English textbook used in government schools in Assam, evaluating how effectively they promote essential reading skills aligned with the NCERT Learning Outcomes (2017). The analysis focuses on three key skills: fluent reading, reading for vocabulary development, and reading for comprehension of main ideas and specific information. A researcher-developed and expert-evaluated checklist (S-CVI/Ave = 1.00) was used for systematic analysis. Findings reveal strong representation of comprehension-focused activities, while activities supporting fluency and vocabulary appear comparatively limited, indicating the need for a more balanced distribution of activities to foster holistic reading development.