A study examined the effectiveness of using whole language strategies to increase the reading skills of minority developmental reading students. Subjects were students (mostly at-risk Hispanics) assigned to a higher-level or lower-level college reading course. The treatment period lasted 12 weeks. Classwork varied among the five classes and included instruction in reading strategies, oral and silent reading of text selections with follow-up comprehension and vocabulary activities, and oral and silent reading of novels with discussions and periodic tests. Students also engaged in various writing and vocabulary activities related to novels. All students were pretested and posttested. Results indicated that: (1) mean gain scores of the combined vocabulary and comprehension subtest scores in the lower level reading groups were larger for the treatment group where novels were used compared to the group that used a reading skills text and no novels; (2) similar gains were found with the higher level reading groups; (3) in the lower level reading groups, the highest mean gain score on the reading attitude measure was found in the group that read novels and worked reading lab materials; (4) the mean gain score in reading attitude was significantly higher in the group that read novels; and (5) the mean gain scores of the combined comprehension and vocabulary subtests showed no statistically significant difference among the groups. (Contains 11 references and four tables of data. A list of 13 student reading materials is attached.) (RS)