The focus in this analysis is on three theories of the relationships among reading comprehension skills primarily relating to the skills used in reading, not to the process or to the instructional procedures used for reading, as differentiated by Robinson. Consideration is given to three factors: (1) the existing need for theories and models in the systematic study of the relationships among the comprehension skills, (2) the definitive purposes served by models and theories, and (3) a discussion of three theories reviewed from theoretical and empirical research utilizing models based on these theories which explain how the component skills of reading comprehension are related to each other. The three theories are defined as follows: (1) The independent or isolated skills theory implies that reading comprehension is a set of different processes which may be learned independently from each other and in any sequence. (2) The global theory asserts that reading comprehension is a single or unitary general process, which after being learned will enable the learner to answer any kind of comprehension question about a given passage. (3) The hierarchical skills theory asserts that reading skills can be arranged into levels according to the complexity of the behavior necessary to learn each skill. Implications are also made to contemporary educational practice. Tables and references are included. (Author/DH)