A two-part study investigated the effects of a text adjunct on poor readers' recall and comprehension. The text adjunct, a thematic organizer, was designed to define explicitly the central theme of a passage, relate the theme to students' prior knowledge, and provide cohesion among the ideas of the passage to accommodate text structure. Subjects in the first part of the study were 85 fifth grade students classified as below average readers. Those in the second part were 24 fourth, fifth, and sixth grade poor readers. Materials included social studies passages and directions for retelling or literal and inferenial questions. Results favored the use of the thematic organizer to increase performance on literal and inferential questions and literal and inferential retellings. The findings suggest that the strategy facilitated more complete recall of structurally important text ideas. (Author/FL)