Shows that fifth and sixth grade social studies and science students using the Guided Reading Procedure devised by Anthony Manzo scored significantly higher on short-term and long-term retention tests than did students using other reading approaches. (FL)

Reviews a number of beginning reading materials that can be used in improving children's reading skills in a variety of content areas. (FL)

Suggests guidelines teachers can use for implementing graphic organizers. Provides an example of such an implementation, including a short text selection, a sample script of the classroom pre-reading dialogue using a graphic organizer to introduce text selection. Discusses attributes of effective graphic organizer implementation. (SR)

Describes how pairing fiction and nonfiction books on the same topic, along with interactive class strategies (such as Venn diagrams, K-W-L, DR-TA, webbing, and activating prior knowledge), can boost students' understanding and enjoyment, help teach content material, and help to ease students into reading content area textbooks. (SR)

Discusses the importance of developing disadvantaged children's background knowledge by using prereading strategies which focus on the text's central ideas. Suggests several guidelines for choosing prereading strategies. (MM)

The authors describe a content-reading instruction scaffolding called The Memphis Comprehension Framework, which was found to be effective in significantly improving higher order comprehension skills for students in grades 4 through 6 in two major U.S. urban school districts. This model is especially potent in improving students' higher order…

Suggests that incorporating content area words into the weekly spelling routine by means of the S2RAT technique will challenge high ability students while encouraging those of low ability. (FL)

Describes procedures for teaching Collaborative Strategic Reading (CSR), in which students of mixed reading and achievement levels work in small, cooperative groups to assist one another in applying reading strategies to facilitate their comprehension of content-area text. Discusses whole-class instruction of CSR strategies, implementing CSR in…

Discusses how interactive, whole class techniques (using a student-generated Big Book adaptation of "Corduroy") improved the reading skills of high risk first grade readers. Describes several activities, including sight word strategies, decoding techniques, and word processing, and suggests 27 Big Books for use with these activities. (MM)