An addition to the teacher's repertoire of silent reading tests is the formal cloze procedure. This test requires the reader to replace exactly individual words deleted from a reading passage. It serves to identify those students who are not reading at an expected level, but it does not suggest why this is so. However, with modifications to both the deletion and evaluation procedures a cloze technique can be used as a diagnostic tool to assess students' reading behaviours. The modified cloze procedure is developed from this premise. It yields valuable information about students' reading strengths and weaknesses. It employs silent reading and can be administered to groups of students. The analysis entails qualifying one-word responses. It is considerably less time-consuming than oral reading assessments. Through its use teachers may acquire further insight into the reading process and thereby gain expertise in assessing reading development. An overview of formal cloze procedure is presented in section 1 of this booklet. The modified cloze procedure is explained in detail in section 2. Section 3 contains 16 modified cloze passages for classroom use. In order to increase the practical value of this booklet, it has been written as a set of instructions addressed directly to the teacher. (Author/PN)