The aim of this article is to illustrate how the teaching of thinking can be incorporated into regular teaching, using the teaching of reading as an example. It provides a brief overview of current understandings of the processes of learning to read and learning to think and then considers how noticing, naming, comparing, categorizing, connecting, generalizing and remembering, which are just some of the many cognitive processes refined as children develop, can be explicitly mediated in the course of teaching reading. It makes a final proviso that this mediation can only be effective in a supportive learning climate in which cognitive dispositions are valued and nurtured.