A review of the literature indicates that instructional differences exist between the instruction given to good and poor readers. A study was conducted to examine the amount of actual reading of connected text, orally or silently, assigned during classroom reading instruction. Twenty-four first and second grade teachers from four school districts were observed as they worked with classroom reading groups. The numbers of words read by children in good and poor reader groups were compared to identify whether the amount of actual reading varies even when the allocated reading instructional time remains relatively similar between groups. Results indicated that the good readers read, on the average, more than twice as many words per session as poor readers. Other results showed that poor readers were seldom asked to read silently and their errors were often treated out of context, with the teacher emphasizing visual or phonic characteristics of the target word. In contrast, the good readers' errors were more often analyzed in the context in which they occurred, with the teachers commenting on the syntactic or semantic appropriateness of the wrong response. Implications of the study are that in order for poor readers to read larger quantities of material the amount of silent reading instruction and independent reading assignments should be increased. (MKM)