The failure of many beginning reading students to become efficient or enthusiastic readers is due to mistaken views of the reading process that cause teachers to stress isolated reading skills and error-free oral reading, rather than focusing on children's ability to read with understanding. Teachers who want to teach differently must take an objective look at reading practices, create settings in which children are willing to take risks, view errors as clues to children's logic, and examine the process of language acquisition for clues that might be applied in reading instruction. Language acquiring children are language receivers long before they are language expressers; they are immersed in the whole of language; and they receive reinforcement for partial success in language production. Similarly, teachers of beginning reading can permit reception to precede expression and can immerse students in the whole of written language through such approaches as the oral cloze procedure and having students follow written material read aloud by the teacher. They can then begin to encourage student help with the reading and to use selective cloze procedures that develop students' predictive abilities. As students begin to read, teachers should respond to miscues by rewarding word approximations, placing first emphasis on what makes sense. Using this approach, teachers can prevent the proliferation of problem readers. (GT)