COMPARISONS WERE MADE AMONG THREE APPROACHES TO DEVELOPING ENGLISH ARTS SKILLS, PARTICULARLY IN READING, WITH FIRST-GRADE CHILDREN FROM SPANISH-SPEAKING HOMES. PARTICIPATING CHILDREN WERE RANDOMLY GIVEN ONE OF THREE INSTRUCTIONAL TREATMENTS FOR ENGLISH-READING--(1) BASAL READING, (2) SECOND LANGUAGE READING, AND (3) LANGUAGE-EXPERIENCE READING. IT WAS HYPOTHESIZED THAT THERE WOULD BE NO DIFFERENCE IN THESE APPROACHES. EACH TREATMENT WAS EXPERIMENTALLY ADMINISTERED FOR 140 SCHOOL DAYS. WITH REFERENCE TO UNDERSTANDING SPOKEN ENGLISH AND TO MECHANICAL WRITING SKILLS, NO SIGNIFICANT DIFFERENCES WERE FOUND AMONG THE THREE APPROACHES. BASAL READING WAS FAVORED WITH REFERENCE TO READING READINESS SKILLS, READING VOCABULARY, WORD RECOGNITION SKILLS, ATTITUDE TOWARD READING, AND GENERAL READING ACHIEVEMENT. BOTH BASAL AND SECOND LANGUAGE READING WERE, FAVORED WITH REFERENCE TO ORAL VOCABULARY AND READING COMPREHENSION. FOR THE SKILL OF WRITING FLUENTLY, BOTH THE SECOND LANGUAGE AND LANGUAGE-EXPERIENCE APPROACHES WERE FAVORED. BECAUSE OF RESTRICTIONS PLACED UPON THE STUDY BY TEACHER AND PUPIL POPULATION VARIABLES, ONLY TENTATIVE CONCLUSIONS WERE FORMULATED. (JH)