Data on 17 first grade teachers and 305 students in 45 reading groups were used to examine the relationships between teacher behaviors, their classification of their students, and student reading achievement. The teachers were asked to rank their students on six characteristics: confidence, obedience, extroversion, good seatwork habits, teacher liking, and teacher concern for the student. These teacher ratings were compared to teacher behaviors during one school year. Additional analyses were used to determine the relationship between teacher ratings and student reading achievement, using reading test scores at the beginning and end of the school year. Students with the characteristics of obedience, good seatwork habits, and teacher liking answered more questions correctly and called out answers less often than disobedient students with poor seatwork habits. Teachers provided more response opportunities, criticism, and terminating feedback to disobedient students with poor seatwork habits, and fewer response opportunities, less criticism and less terminating feedback to obedient students with good seatwork habits. Five of the teacher ratings of students were consistently related to student achievement. Teacher concern was negatively related to achievement, while obedience, good seatwork habits, teacher liking, and confidence were positively related to student achievement. Student extroversion was not related to achievement. (RL)