Five separate papers comprise this report of a project in which researchers developed and evaluated methods for helping young adults enhance their use of reading as a learning skill. The first paper discusses tools designed to increase readers' awareness of what they do as they read, teaching approaches used to promote skill development, and evaluation procedures. The next three papers report on studies (based on action research methods) of the way the following three approaches increased students' capacity for self-organized learning: the structured approach, involving a sequence of supervised instructional modules; the guided approach, in which students chose their own activities; and the freedom-to-learn approach, in which students explored their attitudes toward learning with the aid of repertory grids and received minimal instruction. The final paper, which discusses project results and their implications, notes that the researchers moved from an orthodox to a conversational research design, thus providing a significant new paradigm for conversational research in human learning. Numerous tables are presented throughout the report, as well as such materials as a reading questionnaire and repertory grids completed by students. (GW)