To determine whether emphasizing on basic skills in subject matter courses is an effective approach to improving junior high students' achievement in reading and language arts, 389 students and 16 teachers were assigned to either an experimental treatment group consisting of a health curriculum restructured to use a reading/language format or a control group which received only the traditional health curriculum. It was hypothesized that students in the experimental group would make significantly greater gains in reading/language test scores than the control group students. It was also hypothesized that after receiving teaching techniques through inservice the teachers in the experimental group would produce better lesson plans than the control group teachers. The inservice training consisted of five full-day sessions that addressed the use of the following basic skills as part of the new health curriculum: word meaning, complete sentences, paragraphs, sequence, main topic, topic sentences, drawing conclusions, cause and effect, and fact and opinion. Prior to and after the project year both the experimental and control groups were administered the Basic Skills Inventory. Results supported both hypotheses. (HOD)