Coursebooks are an indispensable tool of the language arts instruction in elementary schools across California State. They are designed for teachers with precise indications of instructional practices, classroom social and participatory structures. However, these pre-designed practices are hardly evaluated for their appropriateness to meet teachers' own needs and interests such as their unique ways of teaching and classroom management styles in different language teaching contexts. This study therefore examines "Open Court Reading"--the prescribed language arts coursebook for teachers of second grade in Los Angeles Unified School District to determine how the textbook reflects teachers' interests, needs and preferences. Through literature review, I identified critical factors that influence teachers' use of coursebooks. Second, 100 elementary school teachers in the district identified three aspects of the coursebook they consider most effective, three least effective and three recommendations. Third, three randomly selected chapters of the coursebook were analyzed to identify the instructional practices preselected for teachers. The teachers' factors (teachers-identified and author-identified) were then matched with the preselected instructional practices in the coursebook. The exercise revealed critical shortcomings in the predesigned instructional activities for teachers. Specific suggestions were made to help teachers maximize the potential of the book. In addition suggestions were made for coursebook writers and publishers. (Contains 3 tables.)