The determination of the relationships among auditory discrimination ability, social class and age group differences, reading skill ability, and visual perceptual skills was the objective of this study. Fifteen New York City public schools provided 180 first, third, and fifth grade white and black males from lower and middle socioeconomic status (SES). A variety of auditory tests were administered as well as a visual discrimination measure, an attention measure, reading tests and an intelligence measure. The results largely support the hypothesis that poor auditory discrimination is a major intervening variable between social conditions and reading retardation. The relationship is stronger for blacks than for whites and decreases with age indicating that teaching and remedial training should be oriented differently for various SES, racial and age groups. (TO)