Eighteen first grade reading classes in the Bedford-Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn were studied for differences in teacher verbal behavior in various types of reading programs. Nine of the classes were using the Direct Instructional System for Teaching Arithmetic and Reading (DISTAR) and nine of the classes were using the less structured traditional basal approach to teaching reading. The teaching process was analyzed by concentrating on the number of teacher questions and solicitations and their meanings using categories defined by Bellack, Kliebard, Hyman, and Smith. Results showed that DISTAR teachers made twice as many pedagogical moves as those in the basal reading programs and they asked significantly more translation questions while the basal teachers made more reacting types of pedagogical moves. The differences in number of moves were primarily related to the programmed nature of DISTAR, calling for mostly short choral responses from the pupils (sounding out a word or syllable and reading a single word) and using nonverbal cues to get such responses (hand-clapping, pointing, and other hand signals), while basal method teachers verbally requested phrase or longer unit responses. While there are differences between the implementation of the DISTAR program and implementation of the basal reader programs, the differences are probably not as great as critics of the DISTAR system believe. (TJ)