This article presents an overview of how to relate reading to a content area, specifically technology education. The author notes that, with the new focus on Common Core English Language Arts State Standards and state-developed standards, technology and engineering teachers should include disciplinary literacy in their curriculum. Academic…

Reading in content areas is generally difficult for English-language learners (ELLs), but reading in social studies is particularly challenging for ELLs for several reasons. First, ELLs often lack background information that textbook authors assume readers have. Second, ELLs in the process of learning a new language do not have…

Describes the attempt of the General Studies and Education Division of Laramie County Community College, Wyoming, to provide interested faculty members with readability information about their textbooks. Notes that faculty became more aware of the factors making their textbooks difficult for students. (RS)

Shows that students can be made aware of their "illusion of knowing" text material by having them read a three-paragraph factual passage with a carefully inserted phrase near the end which contradicts the main point of the passage. Notes that few students recognized the contradiction and that discussion afterward raised awareness of the…

A workable plan to help social studies teachers develop the competencies they will need to teach students to read social studies materials in grades K through 12 is provided in this document. A directed reading lesson is included which suggests practical techniques for improving reading skills. A unit sample and some suggested techniques for…

Describes a staff-development program designed to assist content area teachers in learning about their students' reading abilities, in analyzing the readability of instructional materials, and in developing teaching techniques that match student reading skills to content area materials. (FL)

Reported is a study designed to determine whether reading grade level (RGL) assessment techniques used for elementary and secondary education textbooks would discriminate among plant and soil science textbooks. The study was to select the RGL indices suited to quantify the readability of these sources, and to identify the factors affecting…

A British publisher conducted a readability study of its English language content area texts being used in foreign countries to determine how the texts could be made more readable. A cloze procedure assessment of a secondary school Hong Kong social studies series indicated that the English texts were too difficult for 91% of the pupils tested.…

Special needs teachers and subject teachers simplified text in British secondary level science and humanities courses and used the text with a class of mixed attainment groups. Subsequent assessment indicated that marks of higher achievers were consistently high and marks of low achievers were significantly improved compared to a control group.…

With traditional science textbooks still dominating the market, it is projected that the use of print material and related reading skills will persist as the prime method of science instruction. The need to research reading-science issues exists. This paper attempts to define the task or desired outcomes of research in reading-science dimensions.…

Papers in this report were presented at a conference on text characteristics, convened as part of the Learning from Text Project. The foreword describes the University of California and California State University Joint Projects Steering Committee project to determine the relationship between ability to learn from text and academic achievement,…

This is the second of two volumes containing papers focusing on reading processes and pedagogy that were drawn from the nineteenth annual meeting of the National Reading Conference held in 1969. Among the topics covered in the 37 papers are the following: interpersonal dynamics in counseling students with learning problems, developing an effective…

Three years ago Brigham Young University in Provo, UT began offering a required two-credit pass-fail course to prepare industrial education teachers to teach reading in their field. The course is team taught by a reading teacher and an industrial education faculty member who had done his/her dissertation in reading. Addressed in the course are the…

The nine articles presented in this yearbook were drawn from Arizona State University's Annual Reading Conference which focused on new directions in reading. Four of the articles deal with evaluation techniques in reading and include discussions of developing culture-fair informal reading inventories, what oral language tests really measure, and…