Examination of the nature and role of expectations in reading suggests that both a reading skills and a language skills component are necessary in a program of reading instruction for adult beginning students of English as a second language (ESL). ESL students have found reading exercises specifically designed to teach syntax, vocabulary, and rhetoric and to encourage the formation and use of expectations to be meaningful and enjoyable learning activities. The syntax exercises help students develop the ability to orient themselves within a sentence by identifying the subject and main verb and to handle sentences with complex noun phrase subjects. The vocabulary exercises aid students in learning the lexicon and in forming expectations based on their vocabulary knowledge. These exercises include selecting words likely to appear in text on a given subject, and combining vocabulary knowledge with recognition of implicitly or explicitly logical connections between ideas. One exercise, combining vocabulary and rhetoric, seeks to teach specific vocabulary and to show students how they can expect an author to focus on one topic. (MSE)