There are physical, social, emotional, mental, and language factors influencing the development of readiness for independence in word recognition. It is important to let the chld gain a variety of experiences prior to school entrance, such as the parents reading aloud to the child and allowing him to follow the lines with his eyes while listening. Much research has been done on modality preference of children, holding it true that some children can learn best by a certain method. If difficulties with learning to read occur, teachers should observe each child and appraise the different modalities involved in the instruction. Activities should be provided which provide training in sensory-motor skills, auditory perception and discrimination, visual perception and discrimination, language skills, and thinking abilities. Linguistics offers insight into the reading process and reading instruction, but it does not offer a method for teaching reading. Many researchers believe that it is necessary to change the point of focus if the new knowledge about language is to be utilized so that reading programs are designated to develop word sense and to build comprehension strategies. In other words, semantic, syntactic, and phonemic-graphemic cues should be taught to help the reader determine new words. Each skill toward the mastery of reading should be over-learned until the use of it becomes a habit. References are included. (AW)