This paper offers suggestions in the form of six guidelines on how the teacher can build toward reading maturity in the classroom. The first guideline urges the teacher to remember that reading necessitates a total complex thinking process, one which will prevent persisting at one level of instruction longer than is necessary. Secondly, students should be encouraged to read at levels appropriate for them and be engaged in activities that will involve them in a greater percentage of actual reading. Furthermore, to keep students from comparing themselves with each other, the teacher should define success so that students have a sense of achievement derived from their individual rates of progress. At the same time, the class should be told the reason for a given activity so that it can share responsibility for learning with the teacher. Another guideline stresses the importance of the language experience approach (e.g., relating reading to real life problems), so that students can use their everyday environment to generate their own reading and look to books as a means by which they can solve some of their problems. It is hoped that with the direct application of these various guidelines, day to day decisions about specific methodologies can be more effective and consistent, and reading skills strengthened. (HS)