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An Effective Model for Content Reading (1982)

Ben Licciardi

When educators promote reading skills across the content areas, students gain a deeper and more meaningful understanding of whatever subject area they're studying. The challenge is how to get classroom teachers to incorporate reading into their regular instruction.

In the October 1982 issue of Educational Leadership, professors of education Mary Dupuis and Eunice Askov explore a Pennsylvania program designed to encourage educators to promote reading aptitude in their classrooms.

Read the article: An Effective Inservice Model for Content Area Reading in Secondary Schools

The Content Area Reading Program (CARP) was a validated program that three junior high schools in Pennsylvania used over the course of five years to teach teachers how to develop reading instruction and informal evaluations while following their own subject-specific curriculum.

Noting that many content teachers have negative attitudes toward teaching reading in their classes, Dupuis and Askov were particularly impressed with the program's enduring outcome: More than a year later, teachers not only used the techniques they learned in CARP, but they also maintained a positive impression of them. The authors conclude by reviewing the various principles that contributed to the program's success and recommend ways for educators to incorporate content-area reading in teacher inservice models.

Ben Licciardi is a project coordinator in ASCD's Information Resource Center.