The intake into Year 7 of a country high school was divided into four classes: two high language ability classes and two low language ability classes. The classes were graded in terms of language ability data available from primary school testing. One each of the high and low language ability groups was taught in an open teaching style and one each was taught in a traditional teaching style. All children in the year completed a battery of tests comprising measures of reading comprehension, vocabulary, speed of reading, spelling and creative writing in the second week of February and again in the last week of November. The scores derived from the two sets of data were compared to gauge the relative effectiveness of the two teaching styles - open and traditional. The results do not confirm either teaching style as being more effective than the other in developing the language skills of Year 7 pupils. This result in itself points to there being viable alternative methods of teaching to achieve the same goal of skill in several language variables