The 'Reading German' texts and CD-ROM materials were developed to aid students in acquiring a reading knowledge of German. Through the use of these materials students are expected to obtain a level of proficiency sufficient for understanding scientific and scholarly material written in German. The course is divided into two levels. Reading German: Introduction is an introductory course that covers reading strategies, reading grammar, resources, and basic vocabulary. It leads to a second year reading knowledge of German in 12 weeks. The Humanities, Business/Economics, Chemistry, and Music books lead to a reading knowledge of German comparable to fourth year language courses and teach highly specialised language skills in the student's individual area of interest. The CD-ROM incorporates guided and independent study sections that deal with topics from Reading German: Introduction and fosters autonomous learning.
The programs are designed to make efficient use of the students' subject matter knowledge, thus enabling them to deal with challenging and highly relevant topics from the beginning without the prerequisite 2-3 years of very basic language commonly taught in introductory courses. As well, the programs accommodate five different levels of text difficulty to suit the German language skills of individual students. The course materials encourage students to learn at their own pace and progress faster to higher levels of proficiency than is otherwise achieved through traditional reading courses.