Results of a 1977 assessment of the reading abilities of approximately 1,250 adults (26 to 35 years old) are reported in this paper and are compared with results of a similar assessment made in 1971. After discussing a typical comprehension exercise used in the assessment, the paper presents the materials and multiple choice questions used in assessing respondents' comprehension of four types of practical materials: a classified advertisement, an advertisement from a national magazine, a parking ticket, and a life insurance form. It then presents four exercises involving materials of a more difficult nature: two expository passages, a poem, and a graph. For each of the eight exercises, the paper indicates the percentage of adults responding to each answer and notes changes in those percentages from 1971. Among the major conclusions reported are that there was apparently little change in overall reading ability between 1971 and 1977, that a great many adults may still have difficulty reading passages that call for higher-level comprehension skills (for instance, key percentages of success on six questions with medium- to high-difficulty passages ranged from only 18% to 60%), and that amount of time spent watching television and amount of time spent reading appear to relate to reading performance. (GT) Primary type of information provided by report: Results (Change) (Selective).