Primary school students have difficulties with text comprehension, and therefore support from teachers via proper language teaching strategies is needed. The aim of the study was to determine the impact of language teaching strategies on students' reading outcomes and reading interest. In the current paper, two reading outcomes--vocabulary knowledge and understanding text--and students' interest in reading were considered. In the study, 220 Estonian-speaking primary school students and their native language teachers (N = 12) from 12 schools participated. The results revealed that interest in reading, vocabulary knowledge and text comprehension were positively correlated. Path analysis indicated that the strategy of developing reading interest had the strongest impact on both reading outcomes and students' reading interest. In addition, the strategy of developing vocabulary had a positive effect on students' vocabulary knowledge. Surprisingly, the strategies of teaching text comprehension and teaching grammar rules had negative effects on students' reading outcomes and reading interest. The findings emphasise the importance of proper usage of teaching strategies in primary school language lessons.