Argues that the focus of content area instruction needs to include an emphasis on factors that motivate students to read their textbooks. Presents five strategies to link reader and text: using analogies; relating personal anecdotes; disrupting readers' expectations; challenging readers to resolve a paradox; and introducing novel and conflicting…

Describes specific problems that students encounter when they begin the transition into content area studies. Examines a recent research summary on study skills for suggestions about how to address these problems. (MM)

Describes a study-reading strategy called PLAN (Prediction, Locate, Add, Note), based on recent research, which helps students develop strategic approaches to reading. Discusses teaching PLAN to college students in a developmental reading class and describes adapting it for middle school students. (SR)

Presents a strategy training framework called SCROL (Survey the headings, Connect, Read the text, Outline, and Look back) for helping at-risk college-age students use text headings to improve comprehension. (SR)

Presents a teaching strategy that uses modeling, discussion, and group work to teach reading research strategies in context. (SR)

Describes how content area teachers balked at the need for prereading activities. Discusses how the teacher realized the importance of such activities through a variety of inservice activities. (RS)

A random sample of 4,000 secondary teachers evaluated a list of 36 recommended content area reading practices. Respondents (1,676) suggested that inservice programs concentrate on asking questions about readings, discussing valuable but infrequently used strategies, and using student-centered activities relating prior experience to readings.…

Argues that teachers should apply the same techniques to teach expository writing in social studies textbooks as they do with teaching children's literature. Presents four activities that can be used in whole class and small group instruction. Provides examples and a 13-item bibliography of more information. (CFR)

Discusses ways a middle school reading specialist worked with fellow faculty members to promote reading strategies for independent reading in all content areas. (SR)

The authors outline a research study that explores the plight of students who direct so much effort into decoding that comprehension suffers. They make the case that difficulties in reading for older readers (intermediate, middle, and high school) could be due to reading fluency difficulties, and they offer strategies for helping these students…

This paper examines the problem of content reading by elementary school age children and gives teachers advice to facilitate learning of expository text. Armbruster, Anderson, and Ostertag (1987) identified some of the difficulties students have with content reading to be lack of interest, lack of motivation, and insufficient prior knowledge.…

A study examined the effectiveness of a spatial learning strategy, the Graphic Post Organizer, implemented for an extended period of time. Subjects, approximately 150 eleventh-grade students enrolled in a "regular level" American History course at a combined upper-middle, middle, and working class suburb of Chicago, Illinois, were…

Over 100 books related to teaching reading are listed in this annotated bibliography. Most entries were published between 1980 and 1981. For each citation, information on author, publisher, and availability is accompanied by a brief abstract and descriptors. A descriptor index is included. (LP)

This 37-item annotated bibliography is a review of literature in the Educational Resources Information Center (ERIC) database from 1976-1989 related to vocabulary instruction in secondary education. The majority of citations in the bibliography provide articles with specific strategies for teaching vocabulary in content classrooms. The remainder…

Offers three explanations for why students lack the strategies for independent learning and follows that with five practical recommendations for improving study strategies. (HOD)