In immersion settings, children are immersed in a language that may not be their home language. Bilingualism, speaking in two languages, and biliteracy, reading and writing in two languages, are goals of immersion education. This study investigates the teaching and learning of reading in Irish, a minority language, and includes immersion primary schools in the two jurisdictions in Ireland. The study focuses on pupils in the higher classes in primary schools, when reading in two languages has been established, to investigate how they read in Irish. Findings from questionnaires inform a description of teaching and learning of reading in Irish. Differences and similarities across the jurisdictions are evident. Hornberger’s [(1989) ‘Continua of biliteracy'. Review of Educational Research 59 (3): 271–296. https://doi.org/10.3102/00346543059003271] and Hornberger’s [(2003) Continua of biliteracy: An ecological framework for educational policy, research, and practice in multilingual settings (Vol. 41)]. Multilingual Matters continua of biliteracy is used as a theoretical framework to highlight and explain current practice and disclose areas of power imbalances between majority and minority language instruction.