Gerhard Maroscher's short story readers are designed to enhance learning of German by starting with simple vocabulary and structures and advancing to higher levels. All of the readers follow the same basic format: each short story introduces new target words which are listed at the beginning of each short story and are repeated throughout the story. Learned vocabulary is repeated in later stories to enhance retention. Within each reader the difficulty builds and each subsequent reader builds upon the previous reader. The level of difficulty and vocabulary seamlessly integrates with each following reader in the series. The vocabulary and level of difficulty at the end of the reader mesh seamlessly with the next reader in the series.