Interrelationships between productive oral proficiency in black dialect and in standard English and reading comprehension of passages differing in dialect and content were investigated in a sample of 98 sixth-grade black students. Results indicated that students were better readers as their oral patterns of speech were more representative of standard English. Passages designed as "black content" or with black syntax were harder to comprehend that those designed as "white content" or with standard English. Interactions between factors indicated that performance differed according to the particular combination of oral language characteristics and the dialect of the reading materials. (Author/AA)