Thomas C. Gee

A survey of content reading program development in U.S. Schools

Abstract Since the 1900s many prominent educators have advocated that all teachers help students comprehend texts they assign in their classes, but no national studies have been carried out to survey how widely U.S. schools have implemented content reading programs. The purposes of this study were (a) to determine how widely U.S. secondary schools have implemented programs which involve all content teachers in presenting techniques for learning the content by reading and (b) to discover factors which encourage and hinder development of such programs. A questionnaire was sent to 1,124 persons who subscribed to the Journal of Reading. Of these, 466 (41%) were returned. Returns were received from all fifty states. Overwhelmingly, teachers believed content reading programs would improve teaching and learning in their schools. Despite strong advocacy for content reading programs, however, data from this study indicate that approximately 63% of U.S. schools have not considered developing such programs. A numbe...

Content Reading Programs: Meeting the Promises

This article was prepared to rekindle the dream that secondary content reading programs can make significant, positive dif ferences in the way teachers teach and students learn, accord ing to the writers. They share ideas reading teachers and read ing specialists have found helpful in building content reading programs.

Classroom Uses of Specialized Magazines

There are many specialized magazines for young readers of all ages on the mark t today. Historical Times, for example, is a magazine for high school students that publishes articles concerning the colonial period and mid-nineteenth century. Other magazines focus on scientific discoveries, current events, computer technology, health, fiction, art, and other subjects. Many teachers recognize that specialized magazines are good supplements to classroom textbooks (Appel and Turkish 1984; Memory 1984; Seminoff 1986). These magazines are worthwhile because they (1) contain highinterest articles, (2) are visually attractive, and, most important, (3) provide informative articles that students enjoy reading. In some instances, teachers use magazines primarily for recreational reading or as rewards for hard work or achievement. In other instances, teachers use magazines as primary teaching tools, relying on the content in the magazines for much of the curriculum in their classes. Since there have been no recent studies regarding classroom uses of magazines, this study was designed to determine the extent to which teachers use magazines in their classrooms and the instructional uses they make of them.

A COMPARISON OF READING COMPREHENSION ACROSS SELECTED CONTENT AREAS

Fifty fifth‐grade students read passages at three readability levels from four content areas. They answered vocabulary, literal, and interpretive/applied questions based upon each passage, Significan differences in comprehension were, found across ability levels and across content areas. Students performed better, as might be expected, on literature and social studies passages than on mathematics and scientific materials. Teachers and test makers are encouraged to include a number of passages from a variety of content areas in informal and standardized tests.