Reading involves critical ability. While learning a foreign language one should know how to read and understand the texts and the discussions. The skill to read and interpret texts and discourses is important since learning English brings us into contact with written texts. Teaching reading skills is of utmost importance for students of higher education. Reading skill improves not only the knowledge of language but also it use for academic purposes. Reading comprehension is very necessary for training students of higher education for it enable the teacher to judge the competence of the students. In this paper I will focus only on using passages of reading comprehension to test the development of reading skills. Testing students for reading skills is largely diachronic activity, i.e., that is, testing their reading abilities across time. I conducted my research work with first year students in Samarkand and I used the manual which is designed for teaching reading skills alongside with other skills such as listening, speaking and writing. Key words: reading skills, reading comprehension, teaching, reading in a second language .