The eight popular commercial reading programs examined in this study were selected on the basis of their use with compensatory education students and the fact that they represent different instructional approaches. The study examined how readers are taught to break the letter/sound code, what correspondences are taught, and how correspondences are sequenced and taught in each program. The methodology found in the code-emphasis programs was judged to be appropriate for compensatory education students. The phonics instruction offered by the four basal programs, however, is inappropriate for compensatory readers, since it assumes a sophisticated phonemic analysis ability. The study concludes that the ability to read new words is enhanced by direct letter-sound training rather than by whole word training. A direct instruction model is recommended, containing the following: direct instruction in letter-sound correspondence making these relationships obvious to students, a definite instructional strategy for teaching blending, and repeated opportunities to apply learned correspondences and blendings to the reading of words in connected text. Facility in word recognition is developed through repeated exposure to the same words in different texts. (Tables and references are included.) (DF)