Content-oriented reading interventions that focus on the integration of motivational enhancement and strategy instruction have been found to have positive effects. Developmental education (DE) in the Netherlands is an innovative content-oriented approach in which reading is an integral part of an inquiry-oriented curriculum. Reading for meaning is a central pursuit, and strategy instruction is functionally integrated. This study differs from previous studies in three aspects. Firstly, instead of interventions, two types of existing practices were compared: the DE approach and a textbook-driven programmatic instruction approach (PI). Secondly, this study accounted for classroom influences by conducting multilevel analyses. Thirdly, control variables, i.e. ethnic background, home language, SES, non-verbal IQ, gender, vocabulary and decoding skills, were taken into account. The effects of both approaches were investigated in terms of reading comprehension, knowledge of reading strategies and reading motivation. In a pretest-posttest natural two-group design, tests and questionnaires were administered to 570 grade 4 students in 24 schools. The outcomes that resulted from the DE approach were as good as those from the PI approach. These results are discussed in relation to previous studies that have reported better outcomes of content-oriented reading approaches than traditional and strategy reading approaches.