A privately funded project that placed reading aides in the first three grades of the public schools was initiated in a rural county of Mississippi. The program provided a paraprofessional assistant reading instructor who worked under the direction of a classroom teacher to strengthen and enrich children's work in small groups or in an educational situation stressing instruction in basic skills. The aides, assigned to the instruction group on a full workday basis, met the qualifications of a high school diploma and demonstrated skills in reading, writing, speaking, and interpersonal communication. The results of an evaluation conducted after five years of the project revealed that in the first grades, where students had averaged at the twenty-third percentile nationally in reading before the program, students were now scoring above the national mean. In addition, the reading classrooms in the first and second grades were experiencing an 84% time-on-task as compared to the 70% rate reported as excellent in the literature. Process evaluation revealed that the teachers and aides who emphasized small group or individual activities had higher test scores. The evaluation also revealed higher student test scores in classes where teachers and aides took active roles in designing library reading experiences. The five-year project led to a state law that will place reading aides in all the public schools in Mississippi. (HOD)