The investigators hypothesized that home environment variables--as measured by the Home Environment Review, administered upon entrance to kindergarten--account for the variance in children's reading achievement at the end of kindergarten, first, and second grade. One hundred fifty-three children representing a longitudinal, traced sample from two communities in the Florida Parent Education Follow Through Model were involved in the study. The first community, located in the rural northwestern United States, included a sample of 51 children, most of whom were white. The second sample was taken from a southwestern U.S. city and included 102 children, most of whom were black. Each child's parents were interviewed in their home by a trained para-professional who observed the home environment. The interviewer rated the home on nine dimensions: expectations for the child's schooling; awareness of the child's development; rewards for intellectual attainment; press for language development; availability and use of supplies for language development; outside learning opportunities; materials for learning in the home; reading press, and trust in school. Each child completed a standardized achievement test at the end of kindergarten, first, and second grade. Stepwise multiple regression analysis revealed that the home environment variables accounted for a significant portion of the variance in reading achievement at all three grade levels. (Author/MV)