Two widely used first-grade reading series, Ginn and Scott-Foresman, were analyzed in terms of six phrase-structure grammars in an attempt to discover frequencies for sentence types. The six grammars were noun phrase, verb phrase, verbal modifier, statements without verbs, interrogative, and statements with verbs. Categorial grammars were written for comparison with noun-phrase and verb-phrase grammars. A quantitative method for evaluating linguistic grammars, developed from the analyses, provided a theoretical framework for accounting for various kinds of utterances. Chi-square analysis showed the grammars to be well-suited to both series, with the verbal modifier and statements without verbs providing the best fits. The categorial grammars were approximately equivalent to the phrase-structure grammars, making them possibly more useful for further study since they require fewer manipulations of the text. It was concluded that the method developed would be useful in further analysis of reading materials. Such analysis would be important in increasing the similarity of sentence structure in materials to that of children's speech. Tables and a bibliography are included. (MS)