The question posed in this study was whether university reading methods courses influenced student teachers' instructional choices through a process of reflective judgment. It also examined the students' actual practices as they related to the complexity of their reflections, and whether reflective judgment could be improved by using journal writing with a specific content focus. Eleven student teachers used journal writing to describe and reflect upon their course work from a theoretical perspective and to apply that perspective to classroom experiences. The content of the journal was to relate in particular to reading events they observed or with which they had interacted in their student teaching classroom. Comparison of student teachers' teaching behaviors, as described in supervisors' field notes, and journal entries suggested a consistency between their actions and their reflective statements about instructional events. Upward movement in the levels of reflection was not manifested by students in the study. Students expressed much perturbation in journals and in interviews with the lack of consistency between what they had been taught in their reading methods course and what they saw being done in their classrooms. It is suggested that if reasoning at higher cognitive levels is the goal of a teacher education program, students need more appropriate and consistent support. Examples of journal comments and interviews are appended. (JD)