In recent years there have been several attempts at integrating the research on reading. Snow, Burns, and Griffin (1998) delineated three areas of knowledge that, if appropriately dealt with, will prevent reading difficulties: knowledge of the alphabetic principle, fluency, and comprehension. Snow, Burns, and Griffin suggest that these areas represent opportunities for appropriate instruction. If students do not acquire the skills, they will be at risk for developing reading difficulties. The National Reading Panel (National Institute of Child Health and Human Development [NICHD], 2000) systematically synthesized the research on reading instruction relevant to these three areas. The report examined effective reading instruction and conducted meta-analyses where appropriate. A third effort (RAND, 2002) specifically targeted reading comprehension with the intent of generating a research agenda to add to knowledge about comprehension. In order to develop such an agenda, the RAND report synthesized what is known about comprehension. It is the synthesis of what people know that is important, rather than the research agenda, for the purposes of the paper. In this paper, the author attempts to synthesize some of the material from these various reports and to add material that was not included in them. This report is not entirely bound by some of the restrictions of the other reports. For example, The National Reading Panel Report "only" reviewed published reports of experimental and quasi-experimental research. This report reviews those studies, but goes beyond those criteria, where appropriate, and includes other genres of research.