The paper describes the development of the "Test of Thought and Language" (Total) which is intended to allow first grade teachers to determine if students are ready for phonics instruction or if, for some students, the curriculum should first develop language concepts, structures and thinking processes. Background information for the test's development includes an historical overview of reading instruction, and discussion of developmental issues, effectiveness of early intervention, the myth of static development, and dyslexics and reading instruction. Noted is the familiar pattern of students with high word reading scores, lower scores on oral reading tests, and much lower scores on silent reading tests suggesting the need for more emphasis on reading comprehension. The test is structured according to a matrix using the following perceptual parameters--auditory/receptive (listening), vocal motor/expressive (speaking), visual/receptive (reading), and visual motor/expressive (writing)--against linguistic parameters--semantic, syntactic, morphologic, and phonologic. A relationship between listening comprehension, verbal analogy skill and silent reading comprehension was observed. Specific subtests examined the following skills: listening comprehension, analogies, vocabulary, grammar, and word discrimination. Additional subtests for non-English speaking or language deficient children evaluate spontaneous drawing, copying, figural analogies, and visual arithmetic. (DB)