Standard assumptions and teaching strategies must be discarded when working with international students on the university level. The problems faced by international students are exacerbated by archaic curriculum designs for reading courses. Students have often been expected to negotiate literary masterworks after only three semesters in the language. They were expected to progress from a language novice used to intensive work and reading to a mature reader able to handle a vocabulary of 80,000 to 120,000 words. In order to curb attrition, a new curriculum was designed which attended to foreign student needs. Assessment was made of student cognitive styles and a personal system of instruction for listening and reading comprehension was designed. The latest strategies in second language reading were taught the foreign students in the course. No ability to read in the target language was presupposed. Rate-alteration technology was applied to the reading-listening curriculum in the textual phase of a modified directed reading approach. The result of this combination of methods was better reading fluency during a one-semester course. (Author/AMH)