This research brief highlights key findings from a study that is a subset of a larger study being conducted jointly by NCSALL's John Strucker and Kentaro Yamamoto and Irwin Kirsch of the Educational Testing Service (ETS). This study builds on the proposition that a reader's comprehension performance is largely determined by his or her abilities in two areas--print components and meaning components--and that learners' skills, and therefore instructional needs, vary depending upon their relative strengths and weaknesses in these component areas. Print components include decoding accuracy and fluency; meaning components include oral vocabulary skills. The study also continues work done by Strucker and NCSALL's Rosalind Davidson to develop reading profiles of IALS Levels 1 and 2 adults that will be informative for teachers, administrators, and policymakers in the field of adult literacy. (Contains 1 figure.)