The purpose of this study was to identify promising instructional techniques for promoting improvement in the reading skills of students classified as "disadvantaged" in both the English and mathematics classrooms. Residual gain scores were computed in both English and mathematics for each of 165 students, and mean gain scores of classrooms were correlated with items on a questionnaire designed to identify instructional techniques. These techniques were grouped into seven clusters as follows: (1) the process of prescription and diagnosis, (2) the techniques of remediation, (3) the effect of individualization and grouping, (4) the development of oral competency, (5) the acquisition of vocabulary, (6) the attainment of cognitive skills, and (7) the effect of reinforcement. Some conclusions were that reinforcement emerged as the most important technique in teaching disadvantaged students. Prescription and diagnosis were important in the English area. Individualization and grouping and the development of oral competency were not strongly represented. Vocabulary items appeared to be completely ignored in both English and mathematics instruction. (Author/MKM)