The article discusses three features of content area textbooks that make them relatively easy to read, understand, and learn from--structure, coherence, and audience appropriateness. For each feature, the article describes the research basis for the feature, outlines problems with existing textbooks, and presents suggestions for evaluating…

Offers a set of lesson plans that use simple semantic word maps to help students improve their vocabulary knowledge and comprehension in all subject areas. (FL)

Compares Charles Peters's Content Processing Model with another content area reading model and argues that critics have overlooked a substantial flexibility within the models. (HOD)

Discusses how content area reading strategies are particularly well-suited to developing cross-cultural understanding in both minority and mainstream culture students. Presents and compares strategies devised by secondary school teachers in rural Alaska to demonstrate how some teachers are already promoting cross-cultural understanding in their…

Language arts experiences integrate well with quality science lessons and units of study. For example, there are many opportunities for listening, speaking, reading, and writing activities in science. Ideas gleaned in science need to be communicated in diverse ways involving one or more senders and receivers of messages. Students may read about…

Discusses three language concepts which require urgent attention of social studies teachers. Students need practice in processing the ideas of the social sciences. More attention needs to be directed to teaching the vocabulary of the social studies. Building a background of basic knowledge in social studies is essential. (RM)

Offers strategies that reading specialists can use to promote changes in school reading programs and in content area teachers' attitudes toward reading instruction. (FL)

Suggests that interesting and relevant reading materials can be collected for developmental reading courses by asking faculty from various disciplines to submit short, original articles on topics of their choice within their area of expertise. Describes the successful use of this approach. (DMM)

Lists the recommendations and rationales by eight teachers for books they use in their English classes dealing with politics, government, or public language. (KEH)

The trend in many schools is to move away from using the textbook exclusively in content area classrooms and move toward the integration of various pieces of children's literature, in many instances as a thematic unit. Using a thematic approach and incorporating trade books provides students with opportunities for cumulative learning and the…

The comprehension of instructional text can be a cognitively demanding task because component comprehension processes compete for limited space within the readers' working memories. The component comprehension processes that readers must perform include recognizing words and retrieving their meanings, parsing sentences, identifying and organizing…

Technical literacy is a prerequisite for effective participation in an information society. Generally defined, technical literacy is consonant with work-related functional literacy, but requires a wider range of skills and the ability to deal with specialized forms of materials in order to perform on the job or during training for skilled or…

As individuals read, they construct meaning at various levels, including literal, interpretive, and critical. One part of this comprehension act is creative reading, which may be promoted by self-questioning so that students become personally involved in the material they read. To guide students' self-questioning strategies, teachers can both pose…

Theory and research in reading comprehension have confirmed the important role of text structure in learning from written materials. The previous work with story grammars provided the basis of this attempt to define frames for explanations in history that would be likely to aid learning. A suggested goal frame includes the goals, plan, action, and…

Adult learners--the growing clientele of higher education--require more diverse instructional models than do younger students. The adult learner may be at different developmental stages and display different learning styles, depending on the context in which the instructional interaction takes place and the attitudes, behaviors, and resources that…