As the standards in different content areas become more in depth, many students especially ESOL students, tend to have difficulty understanding the vocabulary and are unable to read and understand the content, especially in science and social studies. If students are given a literacy push in all areas of school, not just in reading and language arts, the hope with this was that their overall performance in reading and writing will improve. Studies have shown that teachers in these subject areas tend to do the minimum that is required leaving out reading and writing components to make it easier on themselves. The purpose behind this study was to find out if using nonfiction text and added written assignments across content areas will help strengthen literacy skills as well as content knowledge. The study was an action research design using quantitative methods in which student test data was collected and analyzed to illustrate improvement in overall understanding of the material taught as well as an increase performance in reading and writing. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://bibliotheek.ehb.be:2222/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]