To examine the relative effectiveness of the language experience approach (LEA) as a means of motivating and teaching reading to behaviorally disordered students, two children were examined. Subjects were an 11-year-old (Jimmy) and an 8-year-old (Bobby), who were placed in a classroom with nine other children identified as emotionally disturbed. All LEA instruction took place in a special services room. After two topics of interest to the students were identified, illustrations were created and used to elicit the LEA stories. Each story served as an instructional base for a period of 4 days with each lesson scheduled for approximately 20 minutes. Two target behaviors were identified: (1) increased recognition of sight words taken from the Dolch Word List and from the LEA stories, and (2) the ability to correctly complete modified cloze sentences at the end of each story. Results showed that while both subjects learned LEA sight words, they neither retained recognition of all new sight words introduced nor retained mastery of all words recognized immediately following instruction. Over all, Jimmy showed the greatest and most consistent growth in sight word learning. While both gave evidence of the ability to predict deleted words in the cloze sentences, Bobby performed this task with greater accuracy and exhibited more consistent use of context and understanding of the task demands. Conversely, Jimmy performed poorly over all. Both students exhibited less disruptive behavior and showed an increased attention to the LEA tasks. (HOD)