The purpose of this study was to investigate, with underprivileged first-grade children, the efficacy of the Initial Teaching Alphabet (i.t.a.) in teaching beginning reading and of the Peabody Language Development Kit (PLDK) in stimulating oral language and verbal intelligence. From 17 classes in nine schools, four groups, consisting of 100, 104, 84, and 81 subjects, were formed. Samples of 54 subjects each were drawn from these groups; subjects in each group were comparable in chronological age, sex, IQ, number of members in the family, type of housing, level of education of the most-educated parent, and race. The experimental programs were begun in September after the subjects were pretested. Both the PLDK and the i.t.a. were taught by the regular classroom teachers in self-contained classes. Pupil progress was measured in three areas: school achievement, language development, and intellectual growth. From the results it was concluded that i.t.a. clearly enhances beginning reading skills, especially in word attack, and that the PLDK does raise the IQ and improve overall oral language facility as well as reading skills for disadvantaged boys. (TS)