Jerome B. Zutell, Jr. Faculty of Early and Middle Childhood Education College of Education The Ohio State University IXRespond to what the child is trying to do. Having presented and decried 'conventional wisdom' in reading instruction in the form of his Twelve Easy Ways to Make Learning to Read Difficult, Smith (1973, p. 195) offers this dictum as the one difficult way to make learning to read easy. Smith urges the teacher to focus attention on the learner rather than on methods and materials, which for so long have dominated American reading instruction, and which so often seem to interfer with, rather than facilitate, a positive and informed interaction between teacher and learner during the reading act. But although Smith's point is well taken, his one difficult rule often leaves teachers frustrated and confused (even after reading Psycholinquistics and Reading). What should I look for? How can I find it? How should I respond if not in the manner prescribed by my teacher's manual? These questions raised by teachers are also points well taken. Responding is neither easy or simple. It requires 1) an understanding of the reading process as it is practiced by the fluent reader, 2) the knowledge and ability to recognize and distinguish between those aspects of the child's reading performance that mark developmental progress toward fluent reading and those that may be interfering with learning to read, and 3) the ability to decide what teacher behaviors will provide the necessary feedback to enable the learner to redirect and reshape reading strategies so that they more closely approximate those necessary for fluent reading. Responding requires no less than using a theory of reading to analyze reading behavior and to guide practical classroom applications. In order to respond knowledgeably teachers must have 1) a basic understanding of the reading process, 2) a method of evaluating a child's reading performance based on knowledge of that process, 3) information from research about what patterns of behavior characterize poor and fluent readers and 4) some sense of how various activities and teacher behaviors can orient poor readers toward more successful reading strategies. In the following sections of this paper I will attempt to address each of these areas, concentrating particularly on how various pat-