about the topics that are assigned in school. Many students, in fact, find it difficult to sustain interest in any textbook reading assignment or to develop their own ideas into a composition. One way to stimulate such students is to suggest topics from their own proverbial back yards. Reading and writing assignments related to their own community are familiar, personal, and generally interesting. Through the study of their community they also increase their respect of local history and improve their ability to write something others enjoy reading.

During the past 20 years many teach ers have participated in preservice and inservice education programs aimed at developing students' reading comprehension. What strategies have teachers found most valuable for help ing students read text assignments ?

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.

Since the 1900's 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 number of conditions seem to be associated with schools which have successfully implemented such programs, including beliefs that all teachers share responsibility for guiding students’ reading‐to‐learn skills, strong and supportive administrative leadership, effective inservice education, time for collaborative planning, effective personnel to coordinate the program, beliefs that such programs are needed and will be helpful, and budgets to support time for teachers to plan and participate in inservice education. The absence of these same factors was suggested as the reason schools had not established content reading programs.

■ In the spring of 1986 a large sample of teachers across the U.S. were asked to complete a questionnaire regarding the extent to which their schools emphasized reading/learning skills as well as content learning in content classrooms. The questionnaire sought to (1) determine the percentage of schools which had developed content reading programs, (2) determine schools' rationales for developing content reading programs, and (3) discover factors which enhanced or hindered schoolwide efforts, to deliver

School Science and MathematicsVolume 88, Issue 3 p. 210-217 What Reading Techniques Do Mathematics Teachers Find Valuable? Steven J. Rakow, Steven J. Rakow School of Education University of Houston-Clear Lake Houston, TX 77058Search for more papers by this authorThomas C. Gee, Thomas C. Gee School of Education University of Houston-Clear Lake Houston, TX 77058Search for more papers by this author Steven J. Rakow, Steven J. Rakow School of Education University of Houston-Clear Lake Houston, TX 77058Search for more papers by this authorThomas C. Gee, Thomas C. Gee School of Education University of Houston-Clear Lake Houston, TX 77058Search for more papers by this author First published: March 1988 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1949-8594.1988.tb11803.xCitations: 1AboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditWechat Citing Literature Volume88, Issue3March 1988Pages 210-217 RelatedInformation

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.

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.

"An Integrated, Student-Centered Language-Arts Assignment." The Clearing House, 50(7), pp. 294–295