A study examined the effects of instruction in meaningful units on the comprehension and fluency of poor readers in the fourth grade. Subjects were five fourth-grade students in a northeast Georgia school classified as poor readers. Method of instruction included modeling smooth reading with appropriate junctures and good intonation. The instructional phase was divided into three stages: (1) worksheets were already segmented at the punctuation marks; (2) students were required to do their own segmenting before modeling instruction began; and (3) written segmenting was phased out while the modeled reading continued. Students were tested on the Iowa Test of Basic Skills (ITBS) before and after the study and evaluated on different forms of Reading Miscue Inventory three times during the study. Results indicated that students showed an increase in words per juncture, a decrease in the total number of miscues per hundred in four out of five cases, an increase in percentile ranks on the ITBS with the exception of one student, decline in the words read per juncture in four of the five students, and maintenance of retelling scores in four of the five students. Comments requested at the end of the instructional segment of the study showed students enjoyed the instruction and recognized the need to focus on more individual words in reading. Students saw reading as meaningful, and read orally much more smoothly than before the study. (Twenty-seven references are attached.) (MG)