This study describes and analyzes a Parent Participation in Reading Program (PPR Program) for low socioeconomic Negro parents and their first grade children as it operated at Washburn Elementary School, Cincinnati, Ohio, during the 1968-69 school year. The PPR Program involved the parent's observing the child at school in a reading group and then receiving personal instruction and materials for home study with the child from a teacher at a "family learning center" located near the school and open at the parents' convenience. The object of the program was to improve the children's reading through parent participation in their instruction. No significant difference was found when comparing the reading achievement of the children whose parents visited the centers regularly, occasionally, and seldom if ever or when comparing reading achievement scores of untreated first grade children and children whose parents participated actively in the program. However, the study did demonstrate that such parents will participate in a program to improve their children's reading and that the reading achievement of children whose parents participated actively, while not statistically significant, was greater than that of children whose parents did not participate. (Author/TO)