In this article, we explore how members of a teacher conversation group, focused on primary students' learning, circulated and instantiated a cultural model of what teaching for literacy meant and how young children learned. We show how, over time, particular discourses around literacy as a quantifiable and measurable skill populated teachers', literacy specialists' and the principal's talk, and were privileged in conversations about learners. We offer insights into how such talk regarding young children's learning might be problematized, analyzed, and made salient for teachers' pedagogy. (Contains 4 notes.)