Defines "content literacy" as the ability to use reading and writing for the acquisition of new content in a given discipline. Identifies three principal cognitive components: general literacy skills; content-specific literacy skills; and prior knowledge of content. Discusses the implications of content literacy for content area reading…

Describes the Selective Reading Guide-O-Rama which is designed to help students in reading selectively and in distinguishing key ideas from supportive evidence and major points from minor points. (RB)

Describes a high school where reading is taught in every content area, including in marine biology, health, and United States History. (RB)

Tells content reading teachers some of the pitfalls to avoid and some of the new approaches to take in helping students benefit from reading. (RB)

Notes several documents in the ERIC data base which describe successful content area reading programs and methods. (MKM)

Presents a useful instrument which determines what administrators and teachers expect of reading specialists. (RB)

Suggests ten teaching strategies for combining reading skills development and physical education instruction. (MKM)

Presents three simple exercises (involving analogies, word relationships, and closed sorts) designed to reinforce vocabulary and concepts from content area textbooks. (RS)

Describes a 15-minute, open book test which covers assigned reading material in a biology class and which encourages students to actually read and learn from their text. (SR)

Discusses the revised Extended Anticipation Guide, which is designed to reveal students' misconceptions about topic and to help students to understand exposition. (PRA)

Presents reading strategies which use "flag words" (enumerative, superlative, transitional, and other flags) to help students identify, extract, and organize important information from text. (SR)

Presents SCAIT (Select key words, Complete sentences, Accept final statements, Infer, and Think at the applied level), a study technique to develop high school students' higher comprehension skills when reading content area material. (SR)

Discusses teaching strategies to present the two most basic ways of organizing information about a steady state phenomenon: pictorial knowledge models and diagrammatic knowledge models. Presents ways of organizing these types of information according to known points of reference and observation. (SR)

Presents a teaching strategy which uses points of reference (or basic underlying concepts) to help students understand definitions, descriptions, and comparisons/contrasts, and models its use. Notes that understanding the importance of points of reference is one of the first steps in the technique called "knowledge modeling." (SR)