A study analyzed word recognition instruction in four first-grade classrooms to begin to identify the instructional practices that best foster learning to read words for particular profiles of children. The study was based on the question of which, and how many, word-recognition strategies should be taught to first-grade children. Subjects were part of four demographically similar classrooms which were observed for a year. In each classroom, students were organized into reading groups of varying abilities. Instructional practice varied widely across these classrooms; phonics and phonemic awareness activities were more common in Classrooms 2 and 4, and while children in Classrooms 2, 3, and 4 were on average reading at or above their grade level by the end of the year, the only low group children who were reading at grade level were those in Classrooms 2 and 4. Findings suggest: (1) differential instruction may be helpful in first grade; (2) children who enter first grade with low literacy benefit from early exposure to phonics, moving later toward the increased vocabulary and text discussion that serves their higher range peers well; and (3) a structured phonics curriculum that includes both onsets and rimes and also sounding and blending phonemes within rimes appears to be very effective. Contains 49 references, 16 tables, and 4 figures. An appendix contains examples of classroom dialogs. (EF)