The purpose of this study was to determine whether: (1) a new basal reading series (N Series) contained a larger variety of sentence patterns in beginning reading materials than a traditional reading series (T Series); (2) the variety of language patterns was systematically increased in beginning reading materials within either series; (3) the T Series contained fewer selected structures at each level associated with comprehension difficulty than the N Series; and (4) the T Series systematically controlled the introduction of such structures into the language of its reading texts. The Grammatical Function Category of the "Goodman Taxonomy" was used to define the syntactic patterns and devices included in the analysis. Twenty pages were randomly selected, and selected devices and patterns on those pages were counted. The results indicated: (A) the N Series and the T Series are more alike than different in terms of the selected structures and patterns; (B) Type 1 Analysis can be used in studies of readability; and (C) the limitations of the Grammatical Function Category of the "Goodman Taxonomy" and the limited amount of base line data for Type 1 Analysis substantially influenced the results of the present study. (Author/WR)