Competency-based education is a model that needs research and development before it can be successfully translated into classroom practices for teaching higher reading skills. Competency-based programs of reading instruction that stress cognitive rather than low-level skills may encounter difficulty in performing a logical task analysis of higher reading skills; in spelling out competencies that consider cross-cultural differences in cognitive style; in adapting instruction to the ecological variables that influence the individual learner; in providing teachers with adequate resources; and in accommodating aesthetic, moral and interpersonal as well as cognitive goals. (Author)