The purposes of this study were to evaluate the effect of a diagnostic structured kindergarten program on the predicted reading levels of disadvantaged urban children and to compare the effect of this program with the effect of the traditional kindergarten curriculum. The subjects were 196 children in eight kindergarten classes. More than 70% of the children were from low socioeconomic homes, and over 60% of the children were predicted as reading failures by the pretest. The experimental treatment was that one hour of each three-hour kindergarten session was spent in structured learning activities planned to develop specific cognitive competencies and conceptual skills related to reading. The activities took place at learning centers in small instructional groups. Learning activities related to specific cognitive areas were planned for each center. The control group had free play and free choice activities scheduled during this hour each day. The Jansky Predictive Index of Reading Performance (JPIRP) was used as the criterion measure of predicted reading levels and was given as a pretest and posttest. The results indicated that the diagnostic structured program raised the JPIRP index scores a significant amount for predicted reading failure children. (Author/WR)