The orthodox view of reading as the accumulation of isolated skills continues to dominate classroom practice. Under this framework, prescriptions for problem readers usually involve intensified drills in the same basic skills to which the students failed to respond in the first place. Prevention entails the early and often precipitous examination of students to detect perceptual, cognitive, linguistic, or affective problems and the introduction of intervention programs to deal with these difficulties via structured prescriptive activities. The newer view of reading as a holistic process of interrelated skills and behaviors has significant implications for instructional and person-centered strategies. According to this view, reading is a tool that students actively manipulate for their own purposes. Because they facilitate efficient reading processing rather than isolated skill development, holistic reading practices provide supplemental experiences for pupils responding to orthodox methodologies and alternative strategies for students who have failed in traditional skills programs. Holistic reading experiences contain maximum information for the reader--specifically discourse prose, content of inherent interest and usefulness, and tasks appropriate to the age, needs, and character of the readers. (A chart of suggested activities to promote the holistic/functional reading approach is included.) (MM)