The suspicion that some second language learners' problems in reading can be attributed to a lack of literacy in general rather than to a lack of fluency in English per se motivated the present study. The hypothesis suggests that readers learn literacy only once and that a lack of literacy in one's first language can be more of a barrier to accurate reading than can a lack of fluency in English. Differences were found within the following pairings of readers: native literate and semiliterate, and native literate and nonnative literate. Discourse blocking and three-system (lexical, grammatical, and rhetorical) analyses show that, generally, native literate readers tend to paragraph at significant rhetorical boundaries. When other readers disagree with this group they do so at the following places: (1) at lower level rhetorical breaks that can often be better characterized as lexical or grammatical, (2) at rhetorical units which begin narrative illustration or "event" rather than expository frames, and (3) after rhetorical units that are interpreted as topic/opening units by native literate readers. (Author)