A literacy support teacher leads a district-wide initiative to organize content-area teachers in an effort to help their students become better readers by offering instruction and practice in five reading strategies across the curriculum. At the end of the 10-week program, teachers felt that students' comprehension had improved, and many felt some…

Increasing numbers of middle school teachers recognize that literacy is the responsibility of all teachers. Traditionally, teachers in many content areas have developed on the read-and-answer-the-questions approach almost exclusively when reading is part of their instruction. Now they can find a smorgasbord approach of content area reading…

As part of course requirements twenty-eight preservice teachers in a field-based content reading course created a series of self-portraits that illustrated their concerns and perceptions about teaching content reading. They accompanied their drawings with dialogue. Analysis of the portraits indicates that arts-based techniques have the potential…

The author studied the literacy practices and perceptions of vocational educators, interviewing and observing them extensively for seven years. The vocational teachers used just as many texts as academic teachers, but used them "differently"--and although they used complex technical manuals, trade publications, schematics, diagrams, graphic…

One way of helping learners to develop knowledge, skills, and predispositions essential for independent learning is by teaching reading in content areas to help learners acquire the necessary strategies to use reading and writing to gain new knowledge. Conent area texts pose differing demands because each body of knowledge has its own framework…

The concept of autonomy can help secondary reading teachers help their students to become better readers and users of text. Research indicates that many students in content areas do not know how metacognitive strategies can be implemented so that students can become autonomous. Practical suggestions for helping readers become autonomous include…

Focusing on content area reading in elementary education, this annotated bibliography contains references to 29 articles and papers in the ERIC database, dating from 1987 to 1989. The citations include articles discussing content area reading research, reading material selection, and teaching strategies for content area reading at the elementary…

Illustrates how advance organizers can be used to aid the second-language decoding process. Devices considered include cognate recognition, syllable-morpheme information, contextualized meaning, chronological ordering, time-frame reference, cross-cultural differences, redefinitions, and direction of discourse. (CB)

Describes how a content area reading program was introduced to two country high schools and the steps taken to encourage its dissemination into neighboring schools. (RBW)

Concludes that prediction making should not be used solely as a teaching strategy, but also as a learning strategy. (FL)

The disparity between male and female career-bound students' abilities to read, comprehend, and use written information is a problem for high schools and their feeder middle grades. A primary reason for the difference is that teachers and administrators expect too little of male students. Educators need to recognize the importance of communication…

This study is on the importance of reading in mathematics. The hypothesis is that reading word problems affects the outcome of problem solving. Students, 44 fourth-graders in two different math classes taught by the same teacher, were given computation problems and other students received the same computation problems within a story problem. The…

Although reading instruction alone can teach students many of the skills and strategies they require for reading content area materials successfully, students also must have ample opportunities to apply these skills and strategies in "real" reading situations--that is, as they read in the content areas. Specifically, teachers can provide…

Middle-level and high school teachers must be skilled in content-area reading strategies and be able to teach their students strategic informational reading skills. Students who learn how to use background knowledge, text-feature knowledge (headings, graphics, and vocabulary), and metacognitive knowledge.skillfully will become strategic readers.…

Describes an informal investigation of students' familiarity with and knowledge of active reading strategies by administering the Metacognitive Awareness of Reading Strategies Inventory. Contends that student responses solidified the importance of helping students become aware of reading strategies. Concludes that the best way to encourage content…