Building content knowledge alongside the task of increasing literacy skills has become a goal for many elementary classrooms. Selecting and implementing texts for the literacy block that both increase content knowledge and develop students' literacy skills alongside increasing motivation for reading is a daunting task. The authors share a…

Describes how pairing fiction and nonfiction books on the same topic, along with interactive class strategies (such as Venn diagrams, K-W-L, DR-TA, webbing, and activating prior knowledge), can boost students' understanding and enjoyment, help teach content material, and help to ease students into reading content area textbooks. (SR)

This article provides a broad introduction to comprehension instruction in content area classrooms. It begins with a brief overview of research and of thinking processes involved in reading comprehension. Then, it outlines several research-supported comprehension strategies, including: (1) Question asking and answering; (2) Clarifying a purpose…

Argues that children develop knowledge in layers, increasing those layers each time the topic is covered. Reviews three sets of materials that provide a background of experience, vocabulary, and text structure for use in science instruction. (FL)

Describes how an excerpt from an electronics magazine challenged the author to examine problems in reading comprehension. Notes the sources of difficulty in understanding demanding text, and states that prior knowledge--not isolated comprehension skills--is necessary to create meaning from a text. (MM)

Discusses the importance of developing disadvantaged children's background knowledge by using prereading strategies which focus on the text's central ideas. Suggests several guidelines for choosing prereading strategies. (MM)

Argues that children need to be taught how to extract, synthesize, organize, and integrate important information from texts into their own knowledge structures and describes some techniques that can be used to activate prior knowledge. (HOD)