A study examined the factors that seemed to affect the way teachers adapted the critical components of content area reading innovations that were presented to them in a 3-year staff development project. In the first year of the project, 23 high school content area teachers were interviewed concerning their use, in content area reading instruction, of such critical components as reading guides, devices to introduce and reinforce content area vocabulary, ways of establishing purposes for reading, ways for involving students in class discussions about their reading, and ways to elicit responses from students concerning their answers to questions in reading guides. During the following two years, these components were presented and developed in workshop sessions and demonstrated in classrooms. In addition, participating teachers worked with a staff developer in devising content area reading lessons for use in their classrooms, and many were also hired to develop content area reading lessons during the summer. At the end of the project, the teachers were again interviewed to determine why, to what extent, and under what conditions they had used the innovative lessons. The interviews were supported with observations and an analysis of materials developed by the teachers. The findings revealed that most of the teachers only use components of the content area reading innovation in a mechanical way. Interview data suggested that this was due to the pressures of time and energy that most teachers felt. (A copy of the interview form is included.) (FL)