diff --git a/README.md b/README.md
index f601c077..155d3094 100644
--- a/README.md
+++ b/README.md
@@ -158,6 +158,16 @@ eng = create_engine("spanner:///projects/project-id/instances/instance-id/databa
 autocommit_engine = eng.execution_options(isolation_level="AUTOCOMMIT")
 ```
 
+**ReadOnly transactions**  
+By default, transactions produced by a Spanner connection are in ReadWrite mode. However, some applications require an ability to grant ReadOnly access to users/methods; for these cases Spanner dialect supports the `read_only` execution option, which switches a connection into ReadOnly mode:
+```python
+with engine.connect().execution_options(read_only=True) as connection:
+    connection.execute(select(["*"], from_obj=table)).fetchall()
+```
+Note that execution options are applied lazily - on the `execute()` method call, right before it.
+
+ReadOnly/ReadWrite mode of a connection can't be changed while a transaction is in progress - first you must commit or rollback it.
+
 **DDL and transactions**  
 DDL statements are executed outside the regular transactions mechanism, which means DDL statements will not be rolled back on normal transaction rollback.
 
diff --git a/google/cloud/sqlalchemy_spanner/sqlalchemy_spanner.py b/google/cloud/sqlalchemy_spanner/sqlalchemy_spanner.py
index 1d0cda07..a9abec59 100644
--- a/google/cloud/sqlalchemy_spanner/sqlalchemy_spanner.py
+++ b/google/cloud/sqlalchemy_spanner/sqlalchemy_spanner.py
@@ -24,7 +24,7 @@
 )
 from sqlalchemy import ForeignKeyConstraint, types, util
 from sqlalchemy.engine.base import Engine
-from sqlalchemy.engine.default import DefaultDialect
+from sqlalchemy.engine.default import DefaultDialect, DefaultExecutionContext
 from sqlalchemy.ext.compiler import compiles
 from sqlalchemy.sql.compiler import (
     selectable,
@@ -116,6 +116,19 @@ def wrapper(self, connection, *args, **kwargs):
     return wrapper
 
 
+class SpannerExecutionContext(DefaultExecutionContext):
+    def pre_exec(self):
+        """
+        Apply execution options to the DB API connection before
+        executing the next SQL operation.
+        """
+        super(SpannerExecutionContext, self).pre_exec()
+
+        read_only = self.execution_options.get("read_only", None)
+        if read_only is not None:
+            self._dbapi_connection.connection.read_only = read_only
+
+
 class SpannerIdentifierPreparer(IdentifierPreparer):
     """Identifiers compiler.
 
@@ -393,6 +406,7 @@ class SpannerDialect(DefaultDialect):
     preparer = SpannerIdentifierPreparer
     statement_compiler = SpannerSQLCompiler
     type_compiler = SpannerTypeCompiler
+    execution_ctx_cls = SpannerExecutionContext
 
     @classmethod
     def dbapi(cls):
diff --git a/test/test_suite.py b/test/test_suite.py
index aa8d3f25..500114c3 100644
--- a/test/test_suite.py
+++ b/test/test_suite.py
@@ -1574,3 +1574,31 @@ def test_user_agent(self):
                 connection.connection.instance._client._client_info.user_agent
                 == dist.project_name + "/" + dist.version
             )
+
+
+class ExecutionOptionsTest(fixtures.TestBase):
+    """
+    Check that `execution_options()` method correctly
+    sets parameters on the underlying DB API connection.
+    """
+
+    def setUp(self):
+        self._engine = create_engine(
+            "spanner:///projects/appdev-soda-spanner-staging/instances/"
+            "sqlalchemy-dialect-test/databases/compliance-test"
+        )
+        self._metadata = MetaData(bind=self._engine)
+
+        self._table = Table(
+            "execution_options",
+            self._metadata,
+            Column("opt_id", Integer, primary_key=True),
+            Column("opt_name", String(16), nullable=False),
+        )
+
+        self._metadata.create_all(self._engine)
+
+    def test_read_only(self):
+        with self._engine.connect().execution_options(read_only=True) as connection:
+            connection.execute(select(["*"], from_obj=self._table)).fetchall()
+            assert connection.connection.read_only is True