A study investigated transfer effects of training below average high school readers in the use of graphic organizers and summary writing on their recognition of compare/contrast text structure. Subjects, 32 high school students with below-expectancy standardized test scores, were placed in two groups: an experimental group (five males and 11 females); and a control group (nine males and seven females). Instruction centered on social studies expository text passages, each with comparison/contrast internal organization. Experimental group subjects received six training sessions of 40 minutes each over a three-week period, including explicit rules and modeling for constructing graphic organizers and writing summaries. Control group subjects received alternative reading instruction during this period. To assess long-term effects, a transfer task, using two social studies comparison/contrast passages drawn from the students' classroom current events reading, was conducted one month after completion of experimental group training. Passages were not adapted, but were used to determine students' ability to transfer their performance to real-world content area textual material. One passage, on nuclear power plant disasters, was designated as a moderately high prior knowledge passage based on preliminary testing which had required students to write as much as they knew about the topics. The other passage, on the death penalty, was designated as moderately low prior knowledge. Results indicated that transfer of training to real-world reading tasks occurred for both high and low prior knowledge passages. (One table of data and two figures are included, and 29 references are attached.) (MM)