To determine whether students enrolled in one Ontario region's early French immersion (FI) programs developed English reading skills comparable to their non-FI peers, a monitoring process was begun in the first FI program year (grade 3) in which formal English instruction is given. The FI cohort and a control group matched for mental abilities and communities were administered reading tests in third and fourth grade. As predicted, the FI students performed below the control group on the first test but attained scores that were at least equal in the fourth grade. A test of inference and generalization administered in fifth grade to the two groups showed consistently but marginally superior scores in all skill areas for the FI group. Item analysis and examination of subgroup performance indicated some areas for improvement or future investigation, including use of the more advanced test at the fourth and seventh grade levels and expansion of the language testing to include vocabulary, punctuation, grammar, and capitalization. A supplement that reports and compares the English reading comprehension scores of FI students and non-FI students is appended. (Author/MSE)