This paper discusses and recommends diagnosis and remediation procedures in teaching pupils in the area of reading. The first section of the paper addresses diagnostic emphasis in reading and discusses individualized reading, experience charts, and 5 recommendations for teaching phonics. The next section discusses basal readers, argues that good reading teachers need to use the basal reader in a satisfying way whereby all pupils achieve as optimally as possible and lists 10 achievement goals for teachers using basal readers. The paper then briefly describes traditional linguistic approaches in teaching reading as advocated by Leonard Bloomfield and Charles Fries. It also discusses the initial teaching alphabet and the use of rebus in basal reading series, where illustrations take the place of complex words that pupils usually could not identify. The paper concludes that diagnosis and remediation in reading are needed for pupils to make continuous and sequential progress. (RS)