This paper defines and exemplifies the "grammar of the reader." It is claimed that existing pedagogical grammars, although supposedly neutral with respect to skills, are actually biased towards production. In translating rules into the reader's perspective, reader's grammar turns them inside out. Reader's grammar does not primarily focus on rules of decoding, nor are its implications limited to reading skill. The reanalyses are of sufficient power to offer effective alternative strategies for achieving integrated, and even purely oral-aural, goals. The uniqueness of the rules of reader's grammar in both their formulation and their hierarchical relationships is demonstrated. Consequences for method of presentation and ordering in curriculum are revealed. A discussion focuses on two primary rules of reader's grammar, generalizable across languages notwithstanding certain language-particular details. The "analog rules of synthesizing and filtering" represent the integrative and selective capacities of first language reading process, but with a special twist to serve as the hitherto missing link to second language reading. (Author)