The purpose of the study was to investigate the relationships between motivational, personality, and selected variables and retardation in reading achievement. The Ss were one hundred junior high school boys: fifty Cauca sians and fifty Negroes. Forty-three variables were submitted to a factor analysis, which yielded fifteen factors. The five factors which were related to reading problems suggested that inadequate readers had verbal deficits, came from low socioeconomic status homes, and adopted one of three adjustive patterns to their reading disability (aggres siveness, negativism, or passivity). Some of the factors were more descriptive of one racial group than of the other. THE PURPOSE of the present study was to investigate the role of selected motivational and personality variables in reading problems among junior high school students. Many similar studies undertaken in the past have suffered from methodological limitations (8) such as failure to use validated objective personality measures in the assessment of personality variables, or small samples of Ss. Moreover, although motivation has been frequently mentioned as a factor in the etiology of reading problems (17), it has not been objectively measured in the studies reviewed by the authors. A further limitation in many pre vious studies has been their failure to control for the effects of differences in intelligence among Ss. The present investigation was designed to over come these limitations by using objective meas ures of personality and motivation, controlling for intellectual differences, and using a large sample. In addition, the study explored the role of family background, socioeconomic status, race, motor abilities, visual memory, and writing productivity in reading achievement. Methodology