Addressing beginning reading instruction in urban schools, this article proposes that a curriculum gap exists in many K-3 classrooms that operate under the guidelines of the No Child Left Behind Act and Reading First. The authors make a case for the inclusion of systematic and sustained instruction in comprehension, content knowledge, and writing in the early grades as well as attention to the Reading First emphases on phonological awareness, decoding, word recognition, and reading fluency. (Contains 1 table.)