In Single Subject preservice programs across the U.S., literacy professors are coping with the demands of preparing their candidates to teach reading and writing across the content areas. The professors are challenged to establish a credible rationale for why teachers in content areas such as physical education, art, and music should be required to take a course in content literacy. While many candidates wonder why they must take a course in reading, many professors wonder how that course can be optimally structured to adequately teach a vast array of literacy-related processes and content literacy methods. In his study of over 100 "reading nightmares" of middle and high school teachers in all content areas, including science, math, social studies, English, and art, Bintz (1997) found that teachers were perplexed by classroom teaching dilemmas such as how to make factual reading more interesting, help students understand what they read, and find time to teach reading skills without compromising subject matter instruction. In this article, the authors present the study initiated by the California State University (CSU) to address the challenge of improving adolescent reading in all content areas. The CSU Chancellor's Office, working through its Center for the Advancement of Reading (CAR), assembled the Single Subject Reading Task Force (SSRTF), a group of 14 members: 12 faculty from various CSU campuses across the state and the two co-directors of CAR, one of whom was also a CSU literacy faculty member. The charge given to the SSRTF was to ensure high quality and consistency across CSU campuses in the reading/language arts methods courses for secondary teacher candidates. (Contains 1 figure.)