Merging the instructional implications drawn from theory and research in the interactive reading model, schemata, and metacognition with computer based instruction seems a natural approach for actively involving students' participation in reading and learning from text. Computer based graphic organizers guide students' preview or review of lengthy readings. The grapic preorganizers present visual displays of key terms and concepts arranged diagrammatically to depict the major concepts so that the organizational pattern can be identified in a way that relates the new information to existing schema. Postorganizers encourage students' self-interrogation of their ability to reorganize, consolidate, and review the text content just read. With the use of computer based glossing, the reader sees no gloss notations until the computer is signalled through a HELP command to present one. At the same time, the reader is constantly involved in metacognitive decision making about which gloss notations might have to be signalled to gain or maintain understanding. Other features of the glossing system are a statistics file that allows for the administration of consistent directions and collection of accurate data, and a text-authoring system that allows noncomputer-oriented teachers to build their own computer based glossing activities to promote comprehension strategies. (HOD)