The Open University of Israel (OUI) is a distance education institution that offers over 250 computer-mediated courses through the Internet. All OUI students must pass an English reading comprehension exemption exam or take the University's English reading comprehension courses. Because reading instruction differs from content instruction, different considerations need to affect how best to utilize the computer when planning computer-mediated communication (CMC) delivered reading courses. The distance courses in English reading comprehension are transmitted via e-mail, rather than the Internet. The purpose of this paper is to recommend this "primitive" option, and to explain why it suits courses of this kind. There is a tendency to move on to ever-more impressive modern technologies, and constantly seek new ones. To avoid falling into the trap that Gabi Salomon referred to as the "technological tail wiggling the educational dog", the e-mail option was decided on. (Author)