Two instructional strategies stress effective reading during science instruction at the middle grade level. One uses print material for enrichment, while the second uses print as the primary instructional medium. Teachers can help students get ready to read in content areas by stimulating their interest in a variety of ways: capitalizing on chance occurrences, discrepant events, exotic demonstrations, and so on. Outlining student questions on the blackboard also provides purpose and focus for subsequent reading. When reading replaces the laboratory phase of an inquiry lesson, study guides reflecting instructional objectives provide the structure needed to increase student comprehension. Postreading discussion of the questions outlined earlier increases student comprehension and minimizes the negative effects of poor reading. Since teaching science solely through reading misleads the students as to the nature of the discipline, reading should be used in concert with activity oriented inquiry programs. The nature of science texts does, however, require that students have the ability to analyze cause and effect statements, directions, and Latin and Greek root words. Because of the close relation of mathematics to science, students must also be able to decode mathematics and word problems, graphic materials, and symbolic statements. (JL)