This brief uses data from the ECLS-K of 1998-1999 to examine how often per week and how much time per day first-graders were instructed in subjects such as reading, mathematics, and science. The brief also focuses in more detail on students’ in-class work on reading and language arts. The major findings of the brief are that more than 90 percent of first-graders received daily instruction in reading and mathematics, while the most common length of time spent per day on reading is more than 90 minutes and on mathematics is between 31 and 60 minutes. The most common reading or language arts activities used in first grade classrooms were working on phonics and instruction in capitalization and punctuation.