In this chapter I will analyse two examples of classroom discourse which belong to the genre of 'talk about texts'. Both are excerpts from discussions between a small group of primary school students and their teacher on the topic of short texts of narrative fiction which they have just read together; the discussions are therefore examples of a form of comprehension activity familiar to many classrooms. On the basis of some observable contrasts between the two excerpts, I will raise some theoretical questions about what forms of verbal interaction between students and teacher might best contribute to the development of the students' independent powers to engage in literacy practices. My concern is not with literacy conceived narrowly in terms of cognitive skills such as decoding or word recognition, nor with oracy per se, i.e. general competence in speaking and listening. It is rather with the role of spoken discourse in enhancing students' ability to produce meaning from their engagement with written text, in line with the broader understanding of literacy as a sociocultural practice found in recent educational research in this field (Cairney, 1995). An increasing recognition of the close relationship between talk and literacy is found, for example, in the work of Olson, who has argued that the acquisition of literacy should be understood as the ability to participate in institutionalised literate activities (Olson & Torrance, 1991). This leads him to stress the importance for competence in literacy of acquiring an oral metalanguage which makes written text available as an object of reflection; he proposes the term 'orality' to distinguish this facility from the more general concept of oracy. There is an affinity between this term and the concept of 'literate thinking' proposed by Wells to refer to 'all those uses of language in which its symbolic potential is deliberately exploited as a tool for thinking' (Wells, 1989: 253).