A study of the relationship between patterns of use of the verb "to be" and reading comprehension had as subjects 103 college freshmen in a developmental program, including 53 black and 50 white students. The students' use of Black English constructions of the verb on a writing skills test and their errors in response to a reading comprehension test were analyzed. It was predicted that students using Black English "to be" constructions would have lower reading scores and would have difficulty reading the easy test items where the "to be" construction was needed to determine the correct answer. The overall results indicated a positive relationship between non-use of Black English and language performance, since students who did not use Black English constructions consistently performed better than those who did. These findings appear to support the literature. However, separate specific hypotheses concerning the relationships of Black English and standard language usage and reading and writing scores, comprehension of easy versus more difficult "to be" constructions, reading comprehension items using "to be" and non-"to be" constructions were also examined and were not always supported by the analyses. (MSE)