Corrective reading assessment and instruction in middle and secondary schools are based on students' weaknesses rather than on their strengths and bear little relationship to the tasks of content area reading. Two premises serve as a rationale for a positive approach to middle and secondary school reading instruction: (1) the majority of students who "seem" to need corrective reading instruction do not need it, and (2) the majority of students who do need corrective reading instruction do not need the kind they are getting. Elementary school reading instruction separates reading into a series of skills, while middle and secondary school reading tasks are holistic in nature. Elementary school instruction concentrates on phonics, but students often do not have the background knowledge to construct familiar meanings out of new concepts and vocabulary, even when their decoding skills are strong. The key to easing the transition from elementary to secondary texts is advanced instruction in reading-reasoning processes in content classrooms, and, for those who still need it, corrective instruction that builds on their strengths: experience, language facility, decoding skills, curiosity, and the capacity to reason. (HTH)