The development of strong reading competencies in educationally at-risk preschoolers in the Early Childhood Day Care Center (University of Alabama) was established through intensive training with a synthetic phonics approach. Subjects' reading performance was assessed on the basis of criterion-referenced tests and standardized reading tests, including the Wide Range Achievement Test and the first-grade Metropolitan Achievement Test (MAT). Noteworthy were findings for differences in length of program participation: children entering first grade who had 2 years of preschool training scored at the second-grade level on most MAT subtests and were firm on a range of decoding and inferential-based comprehension skills, whereas those with 1 program year did best on decoding and literal-comprehension items. Evaluation of reading competencies of children from other preschool programs not providing reading instruction showed word recognition and comprehension performance to be low or nonexistent; letter recognition and letter naming, however, were at average levels. (This document describes the synthetic phonics approach in detail.) (Author/RH)