To compare the progress of New York City children with those of other first graders across the country, as well as to establish baseline data for evaluations of early childhood programs and provide direction for second-grade reading instruction, a pilot study examined approximately 5,000 randomly selected first-grade students from monolingual general education classes in New York City public schools. In the spring of 1986, students were given the reading subtests of the Metropolitan Achievement Test (MAT) Primary 1 level. The study also included a teacher "checklist" evaluation of students' performance on 30 communication arts skills. Teachers and administrators were asked to complete a questionnaire on their opinions about the MAT, the "checklist" and their general views on assessing first graders. Results revealed wide variation in reading test scores among first graders, children who participated in early childhood education programs performed significantly better on the standardized tests than children with no school experiences before first grade. Nearly 37% of the sample was reading at or above grade level. Checklist results showed that over two-thirds of the children could perform basic reading skills, though fewer than half could routinely perform more complex reading skills. Survey results indicated that teachers and administrators felt that the checklist was not comprehensive enough to be the only measure of reading performance. (One figure and 20 tables of data are included, and appendixes consist of student surveys for monolingual and bilingual classes, teacher's guide to completing the student survey, administrator survey, and teacher survey.) (MM)