Recent information drawn from the Educational Products Information Exchange (EPIE) Institute's six-year survey and assessment of instructional materials used in United States schools is reported in this paper. Among the conclusions, observations, and recommendations reported are the following: as currently practiced in most schools, the selection of textbooks and other materials is producing an instructionally unproductive misfitting of materials to the capabilities of learners; commercially marketed materials tend to structure and often define the classroom curriculum--a situation that does not guarantee instructional effectiveness; many of these materials may best be defined as "curriculum structuring" materials that structure class time and activities rather than instructional materials; the most widely marketed and used materials in the curriculum areas of reading, language arts, mathematics, science, and social studies are largely of the curriculum structuring type and are being produced by fewer and fewer publishers; and effective "packaging" is a more potent influence on sales than is careful attention to curriculum design or instructional effectiveness. The paper concludes with a call for more inservice training in the selection of appropriate instructional materials and for the use of learner verification in selecting materials. (FL)