This study was undertaken to measure emotional expression as mediated by the automatic nervous system during reading and during other tasks related to school work. Subjects for this research were eight normal readers, reading above the 46th percentile on the Davis Reading Test Form 1-A, used as a control group and sixteen abnormal readers drawn from a junior college remedial reading center, who tested at the 1st to 25th percentile. The abnormal group was split into two sub-groups termed hypotensive or hypertensive according to their behavior during reading. Physiological data were collected during the reading process using a polygraph machine and a psychogalvanoscope. The data introduced evidence to the effect that two opposing, coping behaviors are evidently associated with long term reading dysfunction. The first is a hypotensive reaction indicating a drop below the normal activation or arousal necessary for optimal processing of information, registration and storage to occur. The other reaction is one of hypertensiveness where all arousal mediating sympathetic nervous system factors are activated into an alarm reaction, making it equally difficult to attend to external stimuli and information processing as during reading. The control group exhibited a moderate range of emotions. (MKM)