The purpose of this study was to show the effect of a balanced reading instruction on kindergartners. The subjects were students from 10 kindergarten classes in 2 consecutive school years. This was a causal-comparative study with 129 students in the control group and 151 students in the experimental group. Both the control group and the experimental group were pretested in the the fall and posttested in the spring, using the Lexia Comprehensive Reading Test. The posttest mean of the experimental group (M = 28.0, SD = 10.3) was higher than the mean of the control group (M = 24.1, SD = 5.21). The results of the AN COVA using the pretest as the covariate showed that the differenc was statistically significant, F (2,274) + 95.8, p \u3c .001. The results support the hypothesis and are consistent with The Report of the National Reading Panel: Teaching Children to Read. For over two years the National Reading Panel reviewed research based knowledge on reading instruction and held open panel meetings in Washington, D.C., and regional meetings across the United States. This research is driving the reading instruction in elementary schools throughout the nation
