This working paper is a report of a study of the meanings 10 children derived from the experience of being taught to read in first grade. The study is based on a series of classroom observations and conversations with the children, their parents and teachers over a 10-month period in two first grade classrooms of a public elementary school in an upper-middle class suburb. Particular attention is given to the way teachers' actions and interactions are connected to children's developing conceptions of themselves as learners and to their perceptions of school learning. Schooling acts of teachers, set out in the form of dilemmas dealing with control, knowledge (curriculum) and societal issues, are investigated to explicate teachers' classroom behavior and its impact on their pupils. Two first grade teachers who used the same basal reading program but appeared to present distinctly different learning environments participated in the study. Contrasts in teachers' orientations toward control (use of Question Chairs, etc.) and children's views of their experience in school (deciding what is "reading" and what is "work") are reported to illustrate connections between teachers' dilemma resolutions and meanings pupils take from the school setting. Because of the preliminary nature of the analysis, no attempt is made to report findings. (Author/RH)