This paper examines the effect of a teacher's management and turn-allocation acts on student performance during reading group lessons in a first grade classroom. The class was observed and videotaped for a year, and interviews were conducted with both teacher and students. The study focuses specifically on cases where management, turn-allocation, and academic activities are performed simultaneously by the teacher. It shows through a discourse analysis that one of the consequences of this practice is the disruption of students' reading turns. During the disruption, often another student provides the correct word to a student who had been hesitating over it. When this happens too often, the students who know fewer words have less chance of learning to read. The results of the study suggest that it is crucial that management be minimized as much as possible because of its negative effects. They also indicate the importance of including non-verbal behavior in future research on turn taking. (AMH)