The instruction provided by two beginning reading programs (the Ginn 720 and the Palo Alto 1973 reading programs) are analyzed and compared in this paper on the basis of such factors as phoneme-grapheme correspondence and phonics instruction, sight word learning, and the development of reading comprehension. The comparison focuses primarily on the teaching aspects of the programs. The discussion of comparative data includes descriptions and defenses of the criteria used, facts about each program's treatment of each instructional area, and evaluative statements about both programs regarding the child who has difficulty learning to read. The study concludes that both programs have positive aspects; overall preference goes to Ginn's correspondence sequencing, its corpus of sight words, and its stories, while the Palo Alto program provides better designed phonics instruction and more opportunities to apply learned correspondences to connected text. (The discussion following presentation of the paper is attached.) (RL)