The main sections of the book focus on the major aspects of reading instruction: assessing students in orderto describe their reading "profiles" or overall reading ability, alphabetics instruction, fluency instruction,vocabulary instruction, and reading comprehension instruction. Computer technology also forms a section. Assessment of student strengths and needs in reading is presented first because it is one of a teacher's firsttasks. Sections on the major components begin with alphabetics and end with comprehension.Thiscorresponds to the movement from smaller units of instruction to larger ones, and also from those aspects ofthe reading process that are considered "enabling" (alphabetics and fluency) to those that are considered theultimate goal in reading (vocabulary and comprehension) (Snow, Burns, & Girffin, 1998; NRP, 2000a). Although each component is covered in a separate section of the book, this does not mean that they shouldbe taught separately. In fact, research suggests they need to be taught together for instruction to be trulyeffective (Snow et al., 1998; NRP, 2000a). Although research may attempt to isolate effective instructionalapproaches or aspects of effective instruction, this does not imply that only one approach should be used orthat instruction should focus on only one aspect of reading. Each of the main sections of the book presents (a) a description of the major aspect of reading covered in asection, including a definition and rationale and, when appropriate, how a reading component is assessed, (b) major questions related to ABE reading instruction associated with specific topics of interest to ABEpractitioners, (c) answers to these questions in the form of emerging principles or trends when thequestions have been addressed by the research, (d) a short summary of the research related to eachprinciple or trend, and (e) ideas (and comments) for ABE reading instruction derived from K-12 readinginstruction research.