Although content related questions may indicate the depth of a readers' understanding of a passage, they do not necessarily help readers develop more general strategies for extracting information from print. A program of strategies to develop comprephension skills should include prereading instruction, activities that increase awareness of written language, and tasks that make explicit the cohesive structures within the text. Prereading instruction should consist of activities such as oral discussion, paper and pencil exercises, and the eliciting of personal experiences related to the content of the reading selection. Such activities should draw on the relevant aspects of the pupil's background experiences to activate the appropriate schemata. Cloze exercises, in which the reader restores deleted words to a text passage, can develop the reader's awareness of language and perception of cohesion in the text. This method emphasizes structure over content. Follow-up activities will help students perceive the language related intuitions they have relied upon in completing the cloze passage. Question and answer discussions are probably the most direct means of keeping a cloze experience within the context of the passage. (Cloze follow-up questions are appended.) (HTH)