In order to evaluate the effectiveness of three language development programs, 98 disadvantaged kindergarten children were grouped by sex, language background (English or English and Spanish), and language instruction (Distar, Peabody, or Standard) and were pretested and posttested on the School Readiness Survey (SRS), the Wepman Auditory Discrimination Test (WADT), and the Illinois Test of Psycholinguistic Abilities (ITPA). A two by three analysis of covariance (covarying for pretest) was computed on each of the subtests of the SRS, WADT, and ITPA. The results for each of the subtests did not show consistent significant differences due to sex, language background, or language instruction. However, t-tests for correlated means indicated that irrespective of instruction, sex, or background the children showed improvement from pretest to posttest on almost all of the subtests of the SRS, WADT, and ITPA. Thus, intensive language development programs in kindergarten appear to be beneficial for disadvantaged children. (Author/JM)