Discusses the use of content area textbooks and indicates that content textbooks are difficult for students to understand because the books generally are not well written. Offers solutions for how to use content textbooks and illustrates how lessons can be created through the integration of tradebooks and through discussions in which critical…

Shares how the author designed reading activities to increase students' understanding of nonfiction by adhering to three principles: purpose, classification, and collaboration. Recounts how students responded to the reading materials and each other as they developed an understanding of the information available to them. (MG)

Reports on participant-observation in a third- and fourth-grade classroom in which students learned to read science texts with both "efferent" and "aesthetic" reading processes. (HTH)

Describes how the teaching of language and the teaching of subject matter knowledge can be brought together to empower students and to foster a positive attitude toward their own abilities. Illustrates a framework for integrating language development and the development of subject matter knowledge with a case study of one classroom in Vancouver,…

Emphasizes that literacy involves more than simply knowing how to read and write. Explains how a teacher expanded reading and writing activities to all areas of the curriculum to demonstrate to first grade students that writing can be used as a tool to make sense of the world around them. (SKC)