Brian McDermott's aptly-named Royals put in a five-star performance to inflict a heavy defeat on a woeful Boro side that suffered the loss of goalkeeper Jason Steele to a muscle injury shortly before half-time.
Two goals from Leroy Lita in either half gave the 983 travelling Boro fans something to cheer, but in truth what they witnessed was nothing short of a horror show.
Braces for veteran full-back Ian Harte and fellow Irishman Shane Long condemned the Teessiders to their heaviest defeat of the season after Hal Robson-Kanu had put the hosts ahead.
The result, along with a win for fellow strugglers Scunthorpe, saw the gap between Tony Mowbray's side and the relegation places close to a worrying three points.
What is more alarming though, was the manner of Saturday's defeat. In previous games, Boro have been unlucky to lose, but this was a different matter entirely.
Mowbray's men more or less sealed their own fate in this encounter, gifting the hosts opportunity after opportunity to punish them and Reading, not wanting to be ungrateful, duly obliged.
Boro were guilty of making costly individual mistakes as well as giving away needless free-kicks in dangerous territory and when you're up against a side that has a dead-ball specialist like Harte in it, you're going to be punished.
"I don't want to stand here and criticise everyone," said Mowbray. "I think it's a lesson for the team and with total respect to Reading, I don't think they are anything other than a hard-working honest team.
"We paid for a lot of elementary mistakes, individually and collectively, and they punished us and credit to them for doing that.
"If you break down the goals there were a few individual mistakes but the way we started the game was difficult, they must have had five or six corners in the first five minutes.
"We gave away silly free-kicks on the edge of the box. It was a poor start to the game. We've been searching for reasons. Was the preparation right before the game Was the mentality right That's an ongoing thing we'll try and address so we don't have a repeat of it."
In the opening stages, Boro looked lively with Marvin Emnes and Lita combining but the visitors were soon pegged back when Jimmy Kebe's right-wing cross was met by an unmarked Robson-Kanu, who headed past Steele on 14 minutes.
Boro got back into it though, when Lita pounced on Andrew Taylor's spilled shot on 29 minutes, but frustratingly, the visitors sat back and proceeded to make life very difficult for themselves.
Nicky Bailey has been one of Boro's better players this season, but it was his badly-timed tackle that led to Reading regaining the lead through a curling 25-yard free-kick from Harte.
That seemed to be when Steele suffered his injury and less than five minutes later, 17-year-old Connor Ripley was introduced as Boro's number one struggled off clutching his side.
Boro went into the break still in the game, but a second-half capitulation saw Reading score three inside 20 minutes.
It was Taylor's turn to be the offender when he conceded another needless foul and, once again, Harte finished, though this time his set-piece missed everyone and went in.
From that moment, Boro heads went down and the way in which they surrendered will set alarm bells ringing in Mowbray's ears.
Two goals from Shane Long rounded off the defeat, the first a simple header from Harte's left-sided cross and the second a cheeky prod past Ripley after Noel Hunt had played him through. It was all too easy.
Lita grabbed his second from the spot after he was fouled by Matt Mills, but the game had been over for a while, leaving the Reading fans to taunt the striker will cheers of, 'Leroy, what's the score'.
After managing to put some daylight between themselves and the bottom three, Boro are now right back in a relegation battle. Even at 3-1 down, they showed no fighting spirit to try and get back into the game and with that kind of mentality, they could struggle to keep their Championship status.
Apart from the defeat to QPR, Saturday's result was Boro's first big reverse since Mowbray arrived in October and the Boro boss hopes his side can turn things around when they face Derby tomorrow.
"In the time I've been here it is a one off, it hasn't happened too often," said Mowbray.
"Generally, away from home, we've had some decent results and decent performances. Even when we've lost, we've done okay in pretty much every game.
"Take away the QPR game and this is the first time we've wanted a game to end. In the 20 or so games I've been here, it hasn't happened too often so we have to get back to the level we showed on Tuesday (against Nottingham Forest) and get back very quickly."
Source: Northern Echo
Source: Northern Echo