There are two educational facts of life: some children are hard to teach and the need exists for some form of remedial reading instruction. This paper seeks to impress on teachers the need to identify those children who are hard to teach and then to adapt the components of remedial reading instruction to fit the needs of those students. This "best fit" rationale requires the identification of certain student characteristics and instructional/teacher characteristics, some of which are discussed. The paper concludes by commenting on several papers presented at the Pittsburgh conference on the theory and practice of beginning reading in terms of the hard-to-teach child and of components of remedial reading instruction. Discussion following presentation of the paper is attached. (RL)