To explore ways to improve reading instruction, a study examined the relation of discussions about assigned reading to students' critical reading behavior and investigated the efficacy of coaching teachers on techniques for discussing the readings they assign. Five teachers from a rural Georgia high school, and their classes of 25 students each were videotaped as they used classroom texts, related study guides, and worksheets, and discussed the readings. Data analysis included transcribing the videotapes, coding the transcripts, and inspecting the data obtained. Results indicated that discussions were test-like events that served to cover the text content, but very few students participated actively in discussion and the central participant was the teacher. Teachers rarely presented themselves as collaborators in the exploration of the content or admitted they did not know something. Coaching increased teachers' acknowledgement of students' responses, increased elaborate student responses, and decreased the number of response resignations. For three teachers, coaching increased the proportion of text connected talk, and the talk became more inferential and analytical. Little progress was made in fostering reference to other texts or hypothesizing and reasoning through divergent possibilities suggested by the text. A table of structural functions and text references in discussion and a segment of a coded transcript are included. (SRT)