This dissertation suggests a new approach to reading instruction and phonetic control in materials development. The central feature of this approach is its reliance on phoneme-grapheme correspondence data. Specifically, the products of this dissertation were (1) the development of relative frequency tables depicting the various phonemes produced by a given grapheme structure, (2) the development of five different levels of phonetic sophistication, (3) the classification of 974 words as regular or irregular in accordance with each level of sophistication, and (4) the phonetic rewriting of three existing short stories to make them phonetically regular. One of the phonetically rewritten stories was given to an existing group of sixth grade students along with its original form. The students performed with superior reading speed and equal comprehension on the phonetically rewritten story. This difference was significant at the .01 level.