Reading can and should be a more widely used foreign language skill, and visual literacy in a foreign language goes beyond comprehension of basal reading materials. Authentic, real-life reading need not wait for foreign language mastery, but can begin at an early level if materials geared to the students' prior knowledge and interest are chosen. An essential skill is the ability to read for a variety of purposes: skimming, scanning, reading for thorough comprehension, and critical reading. It is the teacher's role to provide an atmosphere rewarding the student for taking risks, to give prereading guidance by activating students' prior knowledge or building deficient background knowledge, and to provide subskill practice such as cognate recognition and contextual guessing. Often materials can be found in the classroom, and activities can be developed based on the four purposes of reading. Possible materials include want ads, newspaper and magazine articles, cartoons, recipes, postcards, movie reviews, and baby pictures. (MSE)