Six questions guided a literature review of content area reading instruction in American secondary schools since 1966: (1) What is the history of reading instruction in American secondary schools through 1965? (2) Why is reading instruction at the secondary level important? (3) What are some factors both within and without secondary schools that inhibit the development of effective reading programs that involve content area reading instruction? (4) What are some of the programs that related reading to content areas and that were operative in American secondary schools between 1966 and 1981? (5) To what extent have these programs been successful? and (6) What are the trends in programs involving content area reading instruction? Analysis showed that the idea of teaching reading in the content areas could be traced back to the 1930's, but that the principal type of reading instruction has been remedial, with an expansion of developmental reading in the 1950's and 1960's. The departmentalization of the schools and teachers' lack of training have inhibited the union of reading and content instruction. Two trends in these reading programs were making the teaching of reading the responsibility of English departments and using inservice education to train content teachers how to teach reading with their own content materials. (HOD)