A study investigated the effects of using topic-related pictures to build and activate readers' schemata as a means of increasing background knowledge and, consequently, reading comprehension. Subjects, two special education middle school students with low scores on standardized reading comprehension and vocabulary tests, were taught to interpret pictures that were topically related to reading passages. Findings showed that, after ten three-day sequences of pre-picture reading, picture study, and post-picture reading, subjects' reading comprehension improved significantly on several measures. More specifically, results indicated that teaching the students to examine details and interpret relationships inherent in topic-related pictures (1) improved their ability to answer questions about explicit and implicit information relevant to both pictures and stories, and (2) increased the amount and accessibility of the students' prior knowledge, produced by the systematic study of the pictures. It was speculated that these findings resulted from reader-related variables, such as task focus, schema adequacy and accessibility, and ability to integrate and synthesize information, as well as from picture-related variables, such as imageability and gestalt features. (Seven pages of references are included.) (JD)