THE EFFECTS OF TWO INSTRUCTIONAL APPROACHES, THE COORDINATED, BASAL LANGUAGE ARTS APPROACH AND THE INTEGRATED EXPERIENCE APPROACH TO COMMUNICATION, ON PUPILS' LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT WERE EXAMINED. APPROXIMATELY 600 FIRST-GRADE STUDENTS WERE ASSIGNED RANDOMLY TO THE TWO APPROACHES. APPROXIMATELY 500 PUPILS COMPRISED THE FINAL, TOTAL PUPIL POPULATION AT THE CLOSE OF THE SCHOOL TERM. READINESS, INTELLIGENCE, AND ACHIEVEMENT TESTS WERE ADMINISTERED. ADDITIONAL INFORMATION CONCERNING THE TEACHERS, PUPILS, SCHOOL, AND COMMUNITY WAS SECURED. INSERVICE MEETINGS WERE SCHEDULED FOR ALL 24 PARTICIPATING FIRST-GRADE TEACHERS. DATA WERE ANALYZED BY MULTIVARIATE AND UNIVARIATE ANALYSIS OF VARIANCE. PUPILS IN THE INTEGRATED EXPERIENCE APPROACH HAD HIGHER MEAN SCORES ON THE WORD MEANING, PARAGRAPH MEANING, VOCABULARY, AND WORD STUDY SECTIONS OF THE STANFORD ACHIEVEMENT TEST. PUPILS IN THE HIGHER SOCIOECONOMIC LEVEL HAD HIGHER MEAN SCORES THAN THOSE IN THE LOWER AND MIDDLE SOCIOECONOMIC LEVELS. GIRLS HAD HIGHER MEAN SCORES THAN BOYS ON THE WORD MEANING, PARAGRAPH MEANING, SPELLING, AND WORD STUDY SECTIONS OF THE STANFORD ACHIEVEMENT TEST. DIFFERENCES WERE EVIDENT BETWEEN PUPILS AT MENTAL AGE LEVELS ON ALL SUBSECTIONS OF THE STANFORD TEST. ADDITIONAL RESULTS AND CONCLUSIONS, RECOMMENDATIONS, A BIBLIOGRAPHY, AND APPENDIXES ARE INCLUDED. (BK)