A study was conducted to construct a cloze screening instrument to gain information about the reading capabilities of college students enrolled in specific courses and to find out what support services these students needed. Subjects included 464 college students ranging from entering freshmen to graduate students. Cloze passages were constructed from randomly selected portions chosen from required texts and consisted of 250 words plus complete beginning and final sentences. Results of the cloze tests were scored with synonyms and without synonyms. Results showed that (1) cloze tests were valid measures of reading comprehension at the college level, (2) more than a single passage should be included on a screening instrument, (3) altering the format of the passages did not alter the stability of test results, (4) scoring of passages including synonyms did not increase the construct validity of the test, (5) a significant correlation existed between cloze test scores and achievement in college, (6) mean scores differed significantly in different content areas, and (7) identification of students' reading capabilities indicated a need for student counseling, adjunct classes, and special reading development classes. (HOD)