The author examines some statistics which indicate entire classrooms of Indian students at the junior high school level are reading at the second or third grade level, and are graduated from high school with perhaps intermediate grade reading ability. Various surveys seem to have established that children are able to achieve at grade level through the primary grades but their level of achievement from that point on is an endless downward spiral. In the intermediate grades, the carefully controlled content and vocabulary breaks down; the children are expected to learn, at a faster rate, more complex materials in various content areas. At this point also, instruction in reading usually stops. That the principles of teaching English as a second language should be observed is obvious, and lack of facility with English handicaps the child in learning to read English. However, it cannot be said that the ability to speak English will insure ability to read English. Teaching oral English and teaching reading are not identical processes and do not have the same purposes. Further, the processes and aims of initial reading instruction and advanced reading instruction are not the same. At higher levels, the students should equate words not with sounds but with meanings. They should explore, interpret, and extend the concepts represented in writing in order to develop the conceptual basis for abstraction in English. (AMM)