There are several ways to accommodate content reading assignments with students\u27 varied reading levels. Rieck (1977) reported that many times content teachers simply do not expect their students to read the text. She found that tests given in content classrooms often covered only material from lectures and class discussions rather than text reading. In addition, students were rarely required to discuss their assigned readings

Moore, David

Readence, John R

English

ScholarWorks at WMU

Reading Horizons: A Journal of Literacy and 
Language Arts 
Volume 20 
Issue 2 January 1980 Article 6 
1-1-1980 
Differentiating Text Assignments in Content Areas: Slicing the 
Task 
John R. Readence 
University of Georgia 
David Moore 
University of Georgia 
Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.wmich.edu/reading_horizons 
 Part of the Education Commons 
Recommended Citation 
Readence, J. R., & Moore, D. (1980). Differentiating Text Assignments in Content Areas: Slicing the Task. 
Reading Horizons: A Journal of Literacy and Language Arts, 20 (2). Retrieved from 
https://scholarworks.wmich.edu/reading_horizons/vol20/iss2/6 
This Article is brought to you for free and open access by 
the Special Education and Literacy Studies at 
ScholarWorks at WMU. It has been accepted for inclusion 
in Reading Horizons: A Journal of Literacy and Language 
Arts by an authorized editor of ScholarWorks at WMU. 
For more information, please contact wmu-
scholarworks@wmich.edu. 
DIFFERENTIATING TEXT 
ASSIGNMENTS IN CONTENT AREAS: 
SLICING THE TASK 
John R. Readence and David Moore 
UNIVERSITY OF GEORGIA 
There are several ways to accommodate content reading assignments 
with students' varied reading levels. Rieck (1977) reported that many times 
content teachers simply do not expect their students to read the text. She 
found that tests given in content classrooms often covered only material 
from lectures and class discussions rather than text reading. In addition, 
students were rarely required to discuss their assigned readings. 
Completely neglecting the text is a very limited way to accommodate 
students' abilities, however. Forcing students to rely on lectures and 
discussions for information makes them dependent upon others for in-
formation. In addition, there is much material available in textbooks, and 
guidance may be provided to help students comprehend it. 
Teachers can vary the amount of guidance students receive. For 
example, students can be told to read a chapter and then answer the 
questions at the end of it. These questions ostensibly highlight the major 
concepts, but little guidance is provided before or during the reading. At 
the other extreme, near-complete guidance can be provided. Cunningham 
and Shablak (1975) advocated the "Guide-O-Rama" as a means to help 
students selectively process text. With this method, students are carefully 
directed to each bit of information which the teacher considers important. 
The use of study guides as described by Herber (1978) falls between the 
extremes of guidance mentioned above. Study guides are designed to 
enhance students' comprehension by focusing their attention on relevant 
information in the passage. They consist of questions, statements and 
direc'tions interspersed throughout the text. 
Post-chapter questions, guide-o-ramas and study guides can be 
powerful tools to enhance comprehension of text. However, the authors are 
aware of few sources that deal with differentiating these tools to ac-
commodate students' divergent reading abilities. Of note is a discussion by 
Earle and Sanders (1973) which suggests some excellent ways to in-
dividualize certain aspects of content assignments. The authors intend to 
elaborate upon their discussion of dealing with a single text by developing a 
technique called "slicing" (Pearson and Johnson, 1978). Slicing refers to 
reexamining the tasks required of students in text assignments and then 
recasting them to ease their demands. What follows is a discussion of 
differentiating reading guidance for students by employing a slicing 
technique. 
rh-113 
Scope of Information Search 
Content textbooks are laden with facts. Since it is not feasible to teach 
students every concept presented, decisions regarding their relative im-
portance are generally made. The number of concepts for which students 
are then held responsible determines the scope of information search. 
If the concepts to be mastered are few, a limited information search is 
necessary; as the concepts become more numerous, the scope of the search 
becomes more exhaustive. An exhaustive search generally requires better 
reading skills than a limited one, and its negative effects on attention, 
motivation and retention seem fairly obvious. Therefore, teachers should 
slice the scope of the search according to students' abilities and work habits. 
The number of concepts for which students are responsible can be 
readily varied by adding or deleting the number of assigned tasks on their 
study guides or end-of-chapter questions. Some students may be responsible 
for 15 concepts while others may deal with only five. These concepts mayor 
may not be exclusive from each other. Whatever the case, whole-class 
discussion should follow the directed reading so that all students are ex-
posed to the desired information. 
Contrary to a common assumption, limiting the scope of information 
search does not mean that only literal level thinking be involved. Rather, 
the number of understandings is shortened and not the level. Since it seems 
best to involve all students at the interpretive and applied levels of com-
prehension (Herber, 1978), limiting higher-order reading in an attempt to 
reduce the scope of the search is especially misguided. In fact, slicing the 
scope of the search seems to enhance students' higher level reading since it 
focuses their thought processes on only a few topics. 
Additionally, varying the scope of the search is different from varying 
the length of the passage to be read. Some students may be responsi ble for 
several concepts on a certain page while other students are responsible for 
only a few. This way, the number of assigned concepts is varied, but the 
length of the stimulus passage is identical. 
Length of Passage 
Subject matter reading assignments do not always have to cover one 
chapter at a time. In many cases, reading disabled students become 
overwhelmed by assignments covering more than five pages, no matter how 
limited the actual scope of the search may be. 
Once the teacher identifies the important concepts of a passage, 
resulting assignments should balance the number of concepts with the 
length of text to be dealt with at a single time. Slicing reading assignments 
to a paragraph or section at a time might be appropriate for certain 
students to insure conc~t mastery. 
Pictorial aids should also be considered as a unit of text for assignments. 
Authors use graphs, charts, pictures, etc. to express what might take 
hundreds of words. Focusing on a single pictorial aid may be an ap-
propriate task for certain students while others may focus on the running 
text which elaborates upon the aid. 
114-rh 
Information Index 
Dealing with end-of-chapter questions provide teachers many op-
purtunities to slice students' reading tasks. IlllerSpl'lsing yuestiulls 
tllluughuut the text i:, Ulle methud. That i:" stuuellts ale uilcctcu tu lll.llk 
question numbers at appropriate points in their textbooks and then deal 
wit h the question at the time its number is encountered. This is often the 
first step content teachers will take as they begin using and developing study 
guides. 
If students are not provided interspersed help, then an alternative in the 
form of an information index may be provided. Questions may be keyed to 
the page, section, paragraph and/or sentence where one can find literal 
answers or information on which answers may be based. The degree of 
question interspersing and information indexing may be varied according 
to the importance of the concept reflected in the question, the level of 
thinking required and students' reading ability. 
Type of Vocabulary 
Content textbooks include specialized, technical vocabulary as well as 
terms with meanings peculiar to their subject matter area. Students must be 
able to deal with these terms since they are the labels for the concepts being 
considered. Strange and Allington (1977) recommended that content 
teachers base their intervention in vocabulary instruction upon estimates of 
the decoding ease and conceptual difficulty of terms. The authors have 
modified Strange and Allington's classification scheme in an effort to 
provide further criteria for slicing reading tasks. Once new terms are 
classified, they may be presented to students with an instructional emphasis 
lIpon t hf' spf'cial difficulties of each word. 
Four categories of vocabulary terms are suggested. Category I words are 
easy to decode and easy to understand. "Barter" and "warfare" exemplify 
this category. They are easily decoded because they present no sound-
symbol irregularities; they are easily understood because a familiar word or 
phrase can be supplied (e.g., barter = trade). 
Category II words are easily decoded but are difficult to understand. 
"Recession" and "franchise" are examples of this type. While there are no 
phonic irregularities, it is difficult to supply a common word or phrase for 
these terms. Somewhat lengthy explanations of these terms are required. 
Category III words are those which are difficult to decode but easy to 
understand. Examples of such words are "initiative" and "buoyancy." 
Spelling irregularitit:'S exist in both words ("tia" in initiative and "uo" in 
buoyancy). Nevertheless, a common word or phrase may be supplied for 
each word (e.g., initiative ~ beginning). 
Finally. Category IV words represent the most difficult type of 
vocabulary. "Chivalry" and "nostalgia" exemplify this category. They are 
difficult to decode because of their phonic irregularities. Additionally, it is 
difficult to supply a familiar word or phrase that explains the concept each 
word represents. Again detailed explanation of the term would be necessary 
rh-115 
for it to be understood. An accompanying table is provided to illustrate the 
categorization scheme proposed here. 
Easy 
Understanding 
Difficult 
Understanding 
Easy Decoding 
I 
barter, warfare 
II 
recession, franchise 
Difficult Decoding 
III 
initiative, buoyancy 
IV 
chivalry, nostalgia 
Categorizing words this way allows teachers to slice the task which 
students face when dealing with new vocabulary. By using this gauge of the 
difficulty of words, study guides and questions may be constructed that 
accommodate students' abilities to deal with the decoding as well as the 
conceptual aspects of terms. Words in Categories I and II allow students to 
concentrate on meaning since they are easy to decode. Emphasis is placed 
on decoding with Category III as they are easy to understand. Finally, 
because of the difficulty Category IV words represent, emphasis must be 
given to both their decoding and conceptual aspects. 
Response Mode 
Many questions, statements and directions designed to guide students' 
comprehension of text often fail because they are too diffuse. Slicing such 
comprehension aids can be based on a task analysis approach as suggested 
by Harker (1973) among others. Provided below is an example of how a 
diffuse question can be made more specific, thereby slicing the task. 
Diffuse: What were the causes of the Civil War? 
Specific: List five reasons why the South seceded from the Union. 
List four reasons why the North did not want the South 
to secede. 
It should be noted that the text from which the above question comes 
does not literally state the causes of the Civil War, but it does literally state 
the reasons called for by the specific, sliced directions. Once those reasons 
are listed, students can more readily infer that they were the causes of the 
war. Recasting higher-order questions to a literal level this way is an ef-
fective method of slicing comprehension tasks. 
Another way of dealing with diffuse tasks is to rewrite higher-order 
questions at the same level of thinking but to require smaller amounts of 
information. For example, rather than asking for all the causes of the Civil 
War, only three may be required of poor readers and seven of good readers. 
This limits the scope of the search as discussed earlier. 
Converting recall items to a recognition mode is another method of 
slicing the task. Little structure and guidance is provided by recall tasks; on 
the other hand, recognition items call for verification and are generally 
116-rh 
easier to answer (Herber and Nelson, 1976). It should be emphasized that 
simplifying questions this way does not mean that students will deal with less 
important concepts. but rather. that they will be dealt with in a different 
way. 
Recognition items may be constructed in numerous formats. First, a 
matching task might be considered. Students are asked to match two 
columns of items which may be equal or unequal in number. Using equal 
columns slices the task considerably; unequal columns provide more of a 
challenge to students. 
Multiple choice items are another form of the recognition format to be 
considered. There is considerable structure provided by this format to help 
students master important concepts. Below is an example of how a recall 
question can be changed to a multiple choice, recognition item covering the 
same concept. 
Original: What new problems arose in American life in the second half 
of the 1800's? 
Multiple Choice: What new problems arose in American life in the 
second half of the 1800's? Place an "X" next to the correct 
statements. 
___ Trade with other nations increased. 
___ Much Southern property was destroyed. 
___ Cities became smaller. 
___ Few Northern soldiers had been killed. 
___ European countries interfered with the United States. 
Multiple-choice and essay questions can require students to deal with 
the same concepts, but multiple-choice items present those concepts in 
more manageable proportions. In addition, multiple-choice questions can 
be sliced even further by providing an information index and by varying the 
number of distractors provided according to students' abilities. 
Another type of recognition task is the true-false question. The multiple 
choice task presented above could easily be converted to true-false by 
changing the directions to read, "Place a 'T for true and an 'F' for false by 
each statement below." Such directions often Increase students critical 
attention to each statement. 
Fill-in-the-blank, doze-type tasks can be readily sliced. Reading 
passages may be taken verbatim from the text or else paraphrased and then 
reproduced with selected words deleted. Good readers may be assigned this 
as a recall task; that is, they must provide words on their own to fill the 
blanks. Other readers may be provided a list of correct words plus 
distractors to fill the blank. Poor readers may receive a randomly ordered 
list of correct words which equals the number of blanks in the passage. 
Finally, recall questions may also be sliced by providing possible 
statements to be verified. Difficult, diffuse questions can be changed into 
statements for the students' reaction and subsequent defense. An example is 
provided below to demonstrate this alternative. 
rh-117 
Original: Why was little accomplished during the administration of 
President Grant? 
Statement: President Grant was dishonest and crooked. He was ex-
perienced in politics and able to tell good advice from bad. 
In conclusion. there are numerous variables which teachers may vary 
while making text assignments. The variables described above, scope of 
information search, length of passage, information index, type of 
vocabulary, and response mode, may be adjusted individually or in 
combination to fit students' abilities. Although many students cannot 
master all the information in their textbooks. they can acquire some of the 
information with proper guidance. This is preferable to completely 
neglecting the textbook. Slicing comprehension tasks is suggested as an 
effective way to differentiate the guidance students receive as they deal with 
content area reading assignments. 
REFERENCES 
Cunningham, D. and Shablak, S. L. "Selecting Reading Guide-O-Rama: The Content 
Teacher's Best Friend. "Journal of Reading, 1975, 18, 380-382. 
Earle, R. A. and Sanders, P. L. "Individualizing Reading Assignments." Journal of 
Reading, 1973, 16,550-555. 
Harker, W. J. "Teaching Comprehension: A Task Analysis Approach." Journal of 
Reading, 1973, 16,379-382. 
Herber, H. L. Teaching Reading in Content Areas, 2nd ed. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: 
Prentice- Hall, 1978. 
Herber, H. L. and Nelson, J. B. "Questioning Is Not the Answer." Journal of Reading, 
1975,18,512-517. 
Pearson, P. D. and Johnson, D. D. Teaching Reading Comprehension. New York: Holt, 
Rinehart and Winston, 1978. 
Rieck, B. J. "How Content Teachers Telegraph Messages Against Reading." Journal of 
Reading, 1977, 20, 646-648. 
Strange, M. and Allington, R. L. "Considering Text Variables in Content Area 
Reading. "Journal of Reading, 1977,21, 149-152. 


Differentiating Text Assignments in Content Areas: Slicing the Task

Reading Horizons: A Journal of Literacy andLanguage ArtsVolume 20Issue 2 January 1980 Article 61-1-1980Differentiating Text Assignments in Content Areas:Slicing the TaskJohn R. ReadenceUniversity of GeorgiaDavid MooreUniversity of GeorgiaFollow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.wmich.edu/reading_horizonsPart of the Education CommonsThis Article is brought to you for free and open access by the SpecialEducation and Literacy Studies at ScholarWorks at WMU. It has beenaccepted for inclusion in Reading Horizons: A Journal of Literacy andLanguage Arts by an authorized editor of ScholarWorks at WMU. For moreinformation, please contact maira.bundza@wmich.edu.Recommended CitationReadence, J. R., & Moore, D. (1980). Differentiating Text Assignments in Content Areas: Slicing the Task. Reading Horizons: A Journalof Literacy and Language Arts, 20 (2). Retrieved from https://scholarworks.wmich.edu/reading_horizons/vol20/iss2/6DIFFERENTIATING TEXT ASSIGNMENTS IN CONTENT AREAS: SLICING THE TASK John R. Readence and David Moore UNIVERSITY OF GEORGIA There are several ways to accommodate content reading assignments with students' varied reading levels. Rieck (1977) reported that many times content teachers simply do not expect their students to read the text. She found that tests given in content classrooms often covered only material from lectures and class discussions rather than text reading. In addition, students were rarely required to discuss their assigned readings. Completely neglecting the text is a very limited way to accommodate students' abilities, however. Forcing students to rely on lectures and discussions for information makes them dependent upon others for in-formation. In addition, there is much material available in textbooks, and guidance may be provided to help students comprehend it. Teachers can vary the amount of guidance students receive. For example, students can be told to read a chapter and then answer the questions at the end of it. These questions ostensibly highlight the major concepts, but little guidance is provided before or during the reading. At the other extreme, near-complete guidance can be provided. Cunningham and Shablak (1975) advocated the "Guide-O-Rama" as a means to help students selectively process text. With this method, students are carefully directed to each bit of information which the teacher considers important. The use of study guides as described by Herber (1978) falls between the extremes of guidance mentioned above. Study guides are designed to enhance students' comprehension by focusing their attention on relevant information in the passage. They consist of questions, statements and direc'tions interspersed throughout the text. Post-chapter questions, guide-o-ramas and study guides can be powerful tools to enhance comprehension of text. However, the authors are aware of few sources that deal with differentiating these tools to ac-commodate students' divergent reading abilities. Of note is a discussion by Earle and Sanders (1973) which suggests some excellent ways to in-dividualize certain aspects of content assignments. The authors intend to elaborate upon their discussion of dealing with a single text by developing a technique called "slicing" (Pearson and Johnson, 1978). Slicing refers to reexamining the tasks required of students in text assignments and then recasting them to ease their demands. What follows is a discussion of differentiating reading guidance for students by employing a slicing technique. rh-113 Scope of Information Search Content textbooks are laden with facts. Since it is not feasible to teach students every concept presented, decisions regarding their relative im-portance are generally made. The number of concepts for which students are then held responsible determines the scope of information search. If the concepts to be mastered are few, a limited information search is necessary; as the concepts become more numerous, the scope of the search becomes more exhaustive. An exhaustive search generally requires better reading skills than a limited one, and its negative effects on attention, motivation and retention seem fairly obvious. Therefore, teachers should slice the scope of the search according to students' abilities and work habits. The number of concepts for which students are responsible can be readily varied by adding or deleting the number of assigned tasks on their study guides or end-of-chapter questions. Some students may be responsible for 15 concepts while others may deal with only five. These concepts mayor may not be exclusive from each other. Whatever the case, whole-class discussion should follow the directed reading so that all students are ex-posed to the desired information. Contrary to a common assumption, limiting the scope of information search does not mean that only literal level thinking be involved. Rather, the number of understandings is shortened and not the level. Since it seems best to involve all students at the interpretive and applied levels of com-prehension (Herber, 1978), limiting higher-order reading in an attempt to reduce the scope of the search is especially misguided. In fact, slicing the scope of the search seems to enhance students' higher level reading since it focuses their thought processes on only a few topics. Additionally, varying the scope of the search is different from varying the length of the passage to be read. Some students may be responsi ble for several concepts on a certain page while other students are responsible for only a few. This way, the number of assigned concepts is varied, but the length of the stimulus passage is identical. Length of Passage Subject matter reading assignments do not always have to cover one chapter at a time. In many cases, reading disabled students become overwhelmed by assignments covering more than five pages, no matter how limited the actual scope of the search may be. Once the teacher identifies the important concepts of a passage, resulting assignments should balance the number of concepts with the length of text to be dealt with at a single time. Slicing reading assignments to a paragraph or section at a time might be appropriate for certain students to insure conc~t mastery. Pictorial aids should also be considered as a unit of text for assignments. Authors use graphs, charts, pictures, etc. to express what might take hundreds of words. Focusing on a single pictorial aid may be an ap-propriate task for certain students while others may focus on the running text which elaborates upon the aid. 114-rh Information Index Dealing with end-of-chapter questions provide teachers many op-purtunities to slice students' reading tasks. IlllerSpl'lsing yuestiulls tllluughuut the text i:, Ulle methud. That i:" stuuellts ale uilcctcu tu lll.llk question numbers at appropriate points in their textbooks and then deal wit h the question at the time its number is encountered. This is often the first step content teachers will take as they begin using and developing study guides. If students are not provided interspersed help, then an alternative in the form of an information index may be provided. Questions may be keyed to the page, section, paragraph and/or sentence where one can find literal answers or information on which answers may be based. The degree of question interspersing and information indexing may be varied according to the importance of the concept reflected in the question, the level of thinking required and students' reading ability. Type of Vocabulary Content textbooks include specialized, technical vocabulary as well as terms with meanings peculiar to their subject matter area. Students must be able to deal with these terms since they are the labels for the concepts being considered. Strange and Allington (1977) recommended that content teachers base their intervention in vocabulary instruction upon estimates of the decoding ease and conceptual difficulty of terms. The authors have modified Strange and Allington's classification scheme in an effort to provide further criteria for slicing reading tasks. Once new terms are classified, they may be presented to students with an instructional emphasis lIpon t hf' spf'cial difficulties of each word. Four categories of vocabulary terms are suggested. Category I words are easy to decode and easy to understand. "Barter" and "warfare" exemplify this category. They are easily decoded because they present no sound-symbol irregularities; they are easily understood because a familiar word or phrase can be supplied (e.g., barter = trade). Category II words are easily decoded but are difficult to understand. "Recession" and "franchise" are examples of this type. While there are no phonic irregularities, it is difficult to supply a common word or phrase for these terms. Somewhat lengthy explanations of these terms are required. Category III words are those which are difficult to decode but easy to understand. Examples of such words are "initiative" and "buoyancy." Spelling irregularitit:'S exist in both words ("tia" in initiative and "uo" in buoyancy). Nevertheless, a common word or phrase may be supplied for each word (e.g., initiative ~ beginning). Finally. Category IV words represent the most difficult type of vocabulary. "Chivalry" and "nostalgia" exemplify this category. They are difficult to decode because of their phonic irregularities. Additionally, it is difficult to supply a familiar word or phrase that explains the concept each word represents. Again detailed explanation of the term would be necessary rh-115 for it to be understood. An accompanying table is provided to illustrate the categorization scheme proposed here. Easy Understanding Difficult Understanding Easy Decoding I barter, warfare II recession, franchise Difficult Decoding III initiative, buoyancy IV chivalry, nostalgia Categorizing words this way allows teachers to slice the task which students face when dealing with new vocabulary. By using this gauge of the difficulty of words, study guides and questions may be constructed that accommodate students' abilities to deal with the decoding as well as the conceptual aspects of terms. Words in Categories I and II allow students to concentrate on meaning since they are easy to decode. Emphasis is placed on decoding with Category III as they are easy to understand. Finally, because of the difficulty Category IV words represent, emphasis must be given to both their decoding and conceptual aspects. Response Mode Many questions, statements and directions designed to guide students' comprehension of text often fail because they are too diffuse. Slicing such comprehension aids can be based on a task analysis approach as suggested by Harker (1973) among others. Provided below is an example of how a diffuse question can be made more specific, thereby slicing the task. Diffuse: What were the causes of the Civil War? Specific: List five reasons why the South seceded from the Union. List four reasons why the North did not want the South to secede. It should be noted that the text from which the above question comes does not literally state the causes of the Civil War, but it does literally state the reasons called for by the specific, sliced directions. Once those reasons are listed, students can more readily infer that they were the causes of the war. Recasting higher-order questions to a literal level this way is an ef-fective method of slicing comprehension tasks. Another way of dealing with diffuse tasks is to rewrite higher-order questions at the same level of thinking but to require smaller amounts of information. For example, rather than asking for all the causes of the Civil War, only three may be required of poor readers and seven of good readers. This limits the scope of the search as discussed earlier. Converting recall items to a recognition mode is another method of slicing the task. Little structure and guidance is provided by recall tasks; on the other hand, recognition items call for verification and are generally 116-rh easier to answer (Herber and Nelson, 1976). It should be emphasized that simplifying questions this way does not mean that students will deal with less important concepts. but rather. that they will be dealt with in a different way. Recognition items may be constructed in numerous formats. First, a matching task might be considered. Students are asked to match two columns of items which may be equal or unequal in number. Using equal columns slices the task considerably; unequal columns provide more of a challenge to students. Multiple choice items are another form of the recognition format to be considered. There is considerable structure provided by this format to help students master important concepts. Below is an example of how a recall question can be changed to a multiple choice, recognition item covering the same concept. Original: What new problems arose in American life in the second half of the 1800's? Multiple Choice: What new problems arose in American life in the second half of the 1800's? Place an "X" next to the correct statements. ___ Trade with other nations increased. ___ Much Southern property was destroyed. ___ Cities became smaller. ___ Few Northern soldiers had been killed. ___ European countries interfered with the United States. Multiple-choice and essay questions can require students to deal with the same concepts, but multiple-choice items present those concepts in more manageable proportions. In addition, multiple-choice questions can be sliced even further by providing an information index and by varying the number of distractors provided according to students' abilities. Another type of recognition task is the true-false question. The multiple choice task presented above could easily be converted to true-false by changing the directions to read, "Place a 'T for true and an 'F' for false by each statement below." Such directions often Increase students critical attention to each statement. Fill-in-the-blank, doze-type tasks can be readily sliced. Reading passages may be taken verbatim from the text or else paraphrased and then reproduced with selected words deleted. Good readers may be assigned this as a recall task; that is, they must provide words on their own to fill the blanks. Other readers may be provided a list of correct words plus distractors to fill the blank. Poor readers may receive a randomly ordered list of correct words which equals the number of blanks in the passage. Finally, recall questions may also be sliced by providing possible statements to be verified. Difficult, diffuse questions can be changed into statements for the students' reaction and subsequent defense. An example is provided below to demonstrate this alternative. rh-117 Original: Why was little accomplished during the administration of President Grant? Statement: President Grant was dishonest and crooked. He was ex-perienced in politics and able to tell good advice from bad. In conclusion. there are numerous variables which teachers may vary while making text assignments. The variables described above, scope of information search, length of passage, information index, type of vocabulary, and response mode, may be adjusted individually or in combination to fit students' abilities. Although many students cannot master all the information in their textbooks. they can acquire some of the information with proper guidance. This is preferable to completely neglecting the textbook. Slicing comprehension tasks is suggested as an effective way to differentiate the guidance students receive as they deal with content area reading assignments. REFERENCES Cunningham, D. and Shablak, S. L. "Selecting Reading Guide-O-Rama: The Content Teacher's Best Friend. "Journal of Reading, 1975, 18, 380-382. Earle, R. A. and Sanders, P. L. "Individualizing Reading Assignments." Journal of Reading, 1973, 16,550-555. Harker, W. J. "Teaching Comprehension: A Task Analysis Approach." Journal of Reading, 1973, 16,379-382. Herber, H. L. Teaching Reading in Content Areas, 2nd ed. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice- Hall, 1978. Herber, H. L. and Nelson, J. B. "Questioning Is Not the Answer." Journal of Reading, 1975,18,512-517. Pearson, P. D. and Johnson, D. D. Teaching Reading Comprehension. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1978. Rieck, B. J. "How Content Teachers Telegraph Messages Against Reading." Journal of Reading, 1977, 20, 646-648. Strange, M. and Allington, R. L. "Considering Text Variables in Content Area Reading. "Journal of Reading, 1977,21, 149-152. 

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Differentiating Text Assignments in Content Areas: Slicing the Task

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