Two struggling fourth-grade readers with learning disabilities who have severe deficits in word recognition, comprehension, and reading fluency improve their reading skills using a method that combines intensive word study with the timed repeated reading of poetry. The direct instruction included semantics, morphology, orthography, and phonological awareness. The students engaged in vocabulary-building exercises, studied spelling patterns, and worked with roots and affixes to improve their language skills and strengthen their word retrieval skills. Both students make impressive gains in decoding skills, comprehension, and reading fluency. (Contains 3 tables and 6 figures.)