A study to compare the effects of reading achievement of informal and formal British infant schools is discussed. The informal school, for children from 5-8 years old, utilizes one or more of the following: integrated day, family or vertical grouping, open planning, and team teaching. The formal schools follow a prescribed curriculum and group children homogeneously. The teacher is the directive influence, and there is little integration of curriculum areas. It was hypothesized that on a theoretical basis children who were in a warm, comfortable setting, learning at their own rates, would have an advantage in learning. Three samples were tested: 187 inner-London children, 13 pairs of siblings in a suburban London school, and 47 children in a suburban junior school. In all three analyses, reading achievement was measured by the Holborn Reading Analysis test. Analysis of the data by means of t-tests showed that there were higher means for children in the informal schools, but a significant difference was found only in the case of the inner-London schools. It was concluded that a commitment to an informal philosophy will not adversely affect reading achievement. (Author/CK)