A study examined the teachers' manuals for five basal reader programs, kindergarten through grade six, to discover their recommendations for comprehension instruction. The series analyzed were "Pathfinder," published by Allyn and Bacon; "Reading 720," by Ginn and Company; "Bookmark Reading Program," by Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich; "Houghton Mifflin Reading Series"; and "Basics in Reading," by Scott, Foresman and Company. These series were chosen because of their current copyright dates and because they were leading sellers and were promoted widely. The analysis revealed that the manuals gave more attention to assessment and practice than to direct, explicit instruction. When instruction did appear in the manuals, the connection between what was being taught and how to read was either minimized or entirely overlooked. As a result, identifying referents for pronouns, distinguishing between fact and opinion, finding topic sentences, and similar activities became ends in themselves. One possible consequence is that children receiving the instruction will be unable to see the relationship between what is done when they read in school and what they should do when they read on their own. Finally, the large number of written exercises supplied by the programs might discourage children from wanting to read on their own. (FL)