This study investigates oral language characteristics of 100 first-grade children to determine the relationship between selected measures of oral language and reading achievement at the end of first grade. Using the Stanford Achievement Test, Reading, the study shows statistically significant, but low, correlations existing between the comprehension subtest scores and oral language measures of average utterance length, average T-unit length, number of words in garbles, Syntactic Density Score, and Developmental Sentence Score. Results from three groups, formed according to stanine scores in reading comprehension, reveal statistically significant differences in the measures of average utterance length, average T-unit length, and the Syntactic Density Score. Five stepwise multiple regression analyses showed that average utterance length and the number of words in garbles were the only two significant predictor variables. A bibliography is attached. (Author/RL)