Two types of problems are found in the reading performance of children with poor work habits: a child may have mastered skills but performs inadequately in tasks due to poor work habits, and a child may never have mastered skills because of such habits. Work habit behavior is the student's tendency to apply himself or herself to learning tasks by displaying adequate self-direction in individual or group learning activities. Problems may occur in one of three stages of task performance: getting started, keeping going, and getting finished. Work habit problems increase as students advance in the grades. To build a structure for development of good work habits, teachers must do the following: help the student understand what abilities will be gained as a result of the task and how the ability to do what is expected will be demonstrated; make consequences of good or poor performance clear at the outset and stick to them; plan alternate methods of instruction if performance is inadequate; and help the child organize for the task. Specific techniques are available for teachers to use with students at each of the three problem stages. (DF)