In an effort to resolve some of the problems of widespread reading failure, this report investigated the way in which the language of inner-city black first graders corresponded to the language of beginning reading texts and whether or not dialect features occurred consistently in the children's speech. Twenty first grade black children were invited to select one or more picture books from a display and tell stories suggested by the illustrations. These stories served as the data base from which the language of books normally used as reading texts ("Now We Read,""In the City," and "Ready to Roll") was analyzed. Results indicated poor correspondences between words used in beginning reading instructional materials and those which are familiar to beginning readers. Clearly the children's oral language is more complex than that used in the books. Furthermore, the children were not consistently speakers of Black English--many of them produced Standard English equivalents for the dialect forms which have been reported by linguistics., suggesting that dialect by itself is not likely to present serious difficulties in beginning reading instruction. (HOD)