This study used the residual gain statistic in reading comprehension research in English as a second language to assess individual differences in improvement accruing from learning and training. The subjects were 34 foreign college students with a variety of native languages. A 35-item cloze test with every eighth word eliminated, but with the first and last sentences unmutilated, was administered in two linguistics class sections. A week later, students were given the passage intact and allowed to study it. The test was then readministered. A standard reading comprehension test was used as a criterion measure. Half the subjects' performance was higher than predicted on the basis of pretest scores, and half the subjects' performance was lower than predicted, an unanticipated result. However, the technique did allow a partitioning of prior knowledge from that acquired by reading, and the results identified superior and inferior "improvers" for further research on the speed and quality of learning in reading. (MSE)