This article reports on findings from a national study of Reading First's effect on student reading achievement released last week by the Institute of Education Sciences. The major federal report finds that the $1 billion-a-year Reading First program has had no measurable effect on students' reading comprehension, on average, although participating schools are spending significantly more time teaching the basic skills that researchers say children need to become proficient readers. Reading First was authorized under the 6-year-old No Child Left Behind Act to help improve reading instruction in the nation's struggling schools. It requires schools receiving the federal grants to incorporate scientifically based reading research, which was defined by the National Reading Panel, in an influential 2000 report, as explicit and systematic instruction in phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension. The long-awaited interim report from the "Reading First Impact Study" says that students in schools receiving grants from the federal program have not fared any better than their counterparts in comparison schools in gaining meaning from print. That central finding in the first national study, however, does not necessarily signal that the program, or the evidence-based instructional model it is based on, is not working, federal officials said.