This report discusses a practicum designed to offer support strategies to 55 at-risk students in the eighth grade, 53 of whom indicated they were unable to read their present textbooks even with teachers' help and guidance. The major goals of the intervention were to assist the at-risk students in achieving a score of 70 percent in all content areas on the Iowa Test of Basic Skills, in successfully reading their textbooks, and in recognizing vocabulary concepts. Students were taught study-type reading skills to organize textbook content in a way that would facilitate students' attempts to review and retain the information. Eighth-grade teachers were trained to adapt the textbooks in their area of content. Several strategies were used to improve the reading comprehension of the at-risk students, such as Read-Encode- Annotate-Ponder and the Self-Monitoring Approach to Reading and Thinking. Results of the practicum indicated 50 of the 55 students achieved an acceptable score of 70 percent in all content areas and were able to read the existing textbooks. (Contains 44 references.) (CR)