Techniques and approaches useful for developing reading comprehension and reading skills in second language learners are discussed and illustrated with examples from German. Literature is reviewed on: the effectiveness of reading while listening, transfer of skills and knowledge from one language to another, the role of guessing in reading comprehension, and the contrastive method of second language learning. Exercises for vocabulary development, dictionary use, transformation and recognition of difficult common words and cognates, language awareness, inflection, global text comprehension or extensive reading (including recall), and detailed or intensive text comprehension are suggested. (MSE)