Making Meaning is a developmental reading text that balances teaching phonics and whole language skills for students who read below the 6th grade level. The text is designed to be visually appealing through the use of numerous photographs and other graphics, and provides the tools needed to acquire the reading, writing, thinking, and reasoning skills that will enable students to effectively process, analyze, and learn information on their own.  Its recursive structure gives students the opportunity in each chapter to practice and integrate skills learned from previous lessons, and apply those reading strategies to many kinds of texts.