In an evaluation of a language arts program for oral and written facility and comprehension among children of an urban culture, 262 children in kindergarten comprised the experimental group, and 369 students served as controls. Children in both groups were presented with three pictures and instructed to tell a story about each. Observers rated speech facility and overall verbalization. Pretests and posttests were given to both groups. The results showed that students in experimental schools do significantly better in word meaning, language facility, picture vocabulary, and the Merrill-Palmer Scale and relatively better on English Error Score and in reading than their readiness score predicted. They made significantly fewer errors on the Dailey Language Facility Test. School characteristics and school success were compared with data from another study. It was found that teachers' salaries, teachers' experience, number of books in the school library, and per-pupil expenditure are more closely related to school success than are school size, average class size, age of building and suburban location. Family income was most closely related. The language arts program was found to be needed and successful and should be extended to the prekindergarten level. A reevaluation should be made in a few years. (JS)