This guide provides both a rationale and explicit, practical suggestions to help the high school business education teacher teach students the reading skills necessary to handle skills- and concept-oriented reading materials. It consists of four sections. The first section, which provides a rationale for reading instruction in business education classes, covers the range of student ability, difficulty of texts, the changing student population in business education classes, demands for functional literacy, needs for retraining, and skills developed in business courses. Explained in section 2 are techniques for assessing prerequisite skills, students, textbooks and reading materials, and study habits; techniques include informal assessment, teacher observation, informal exercises, and teacher-constructed reading texts. The third section describes organizing activities, students, and time in the business education classroom; stranding assignments; and applying various teaching principles to specific business education classes (bookkeeping and accounting, typewriting, shorthand, general nonskill courses, and business law). General guidelines for material selection, readability formulas, and information on developing, funding, and obtaining multi-level materials are presented in the final section. (Checklists of reading and study skills, a stranding model, and an annotated bibliography of materials on reading in business education classes are appended.) (MN)