Two trends have emerged in recent years in the diagnosis of remedial readers, which--when applied with caution--may be of reasonable value to the clinician and the teacher. One of these trends has been the promotion of informal assessments, and an accompanying plethora of commercial informal reading inventories (IRIs). These instruments are designed to replace any that might be made by the teachers and clinicians who use them, and thus they should be examined carefully and customized to minimize their significant limitations. IRIs are often used to place readers in materials of appropriate difficulty. Some reports in the ERIC database suggest it is harmful to place children in unnecessarily low reading groups; others show that many experienced teachers identify materials that will insure success for the remedial reader. Another trend is the use of computerized diagnosis of a reader. While such information would be useful as a part of data collection, it should not be a major factor in placement and instructional decisions, which require precise individual assessments. (SR)