Forty freshmen at Dillard University (New Orleans, Louisiana) completed the Nelson-Denny Reading Test, an original criterion-referenced test of specific reading skills, and an in-class theme on an assigned topic. Results of the analysis of reading and writing skills established a high relationship between the two skill areas: the better writers were the better readers, and the poorer writers were the poorer readers. Other results indicated that accuracy in organization and mechanics was more highly related to superior reading skill than fluency of ideas, that the Nelson-Denny Reading Test tends to discriminate the better readers and writers from the average and poorer readers and writers, and that the criterion-referenced reading test tends to discriminate the poorer readers and writers from the average and better readers and writers. Results were interpreted in terms of the need to integrate instruction in the basic skills of reading and composition at the college level. (Author/AA)