An investigation was conducted to test the assumption that Black English (BE) dialect interferes with reading. Data from 45 lower standard English (SE) speakers were collected and analyzed to measure racial group differences on auditory discrimination, oral reading, BE phonology usage, and silent reading comprehension. Dialect differences analyzed were: (1) r'lessness, (2) l'lessness, (3) simplification of final consonant clusters, (4) weakening of final consonants, and (5) vowel variations. Thirty-three word pairs which are different in SE but may be homonyms in BE were used to measure dialect phonology interference in reading comprehension. To test auditory discrimination a tape was played and the child pointed to a picture representing the word. To test oral reading comprehension the subject read a sentence containing only one word in the picture pair and pointed to the appropriate picture. A reading test patterned after the ratio cloze technique was administered to test silent reading comprehension. Conclusions indicated that Black children experienced difficulty in auditorily discriminating word pairs which are homonyms in BE though distinct in SE, but showed no inability to comprehend these words while reading orally or silently. The phonological category most confusing for the black student was vowel variation. (Author/WR)