Much has been hoped for and said about reflection as an essential attribute of effective literacy teaching. Equally as much remains muddled and confused, however, as to its purpose, development, and role in preparing new teachers of reading. How to help aspiring teachers become more reflective about their literacy teaching across the preparatory years is not clear, and proven strategies for improving reflection through professional educationand why they are doing it every step of the way. Yet the realization of this ideal both within and beyond the confines of preparatory coursework in literacy instruction has not been easy to attain. How to help aspiring teachers become more reflective, for example, is not all that certain (Russell, 1993). Moreover it is not clear that even if beginners grew more reflective, to what extent this activity improves their teaching performance and positively impacts children's literacy achievement. The reflective teacher, in other words, is a noble ideal (and a long-standing one), but how to nurture such individuals through teacher preparation programs and why do so (for all practical purposes) are not well understood.To a large extent, the problem stems from the idea of "reflection" itself, which is a dense, multi-layered concept that can be examined from multiple perspectives and at multiple levels. As van Manen (1995) observed, reflection is a phenomenon (a lived experience with temporal qualities), a theory of professional practice (e.g., Schon's, 1983, reflection-in-action), and an intellectual construct that involves "a complex array of cognitively and philosophically distinct methods and attitudes" (pp. 33-34). Dewey (1901Dewey ( / 1933 argued, for example, that reflection consisted of several mental steps (e.g., confusion, anticipation, analysis, elaboration, decision making, and action) and certain qualities of character (e.g., open-mindedness, wholeheartedness, and responsibility). Others observe that reflection occurs at different levels of deliberation, such as technical, interpretive, and critical kinds of rational thinking (e.g., Guillaume & Rudney, 1993; van Manen, 1977; Zeichner & Liston, 1985). The "complex array" of ideas surrounding reflection has produced multiple definitions of what it is and means in the field of teacher education. Reflection and reflective activity are linked to teaching actions, thinking, development, awareness, beliefs, assessment, and educational reform. Little in the discourse on teacher education, in fact, has gone unmentioned in relation to this concept (Calderhead, 1992). But with all that has been hoped for and all that has been said in the name of reflection, much remains muddled and confused as to its purpose, development, and role in preparing new teachers of reading.In this article, we attempt to disentangle reflection as an object of study in the professional education of reading teachers. If we are to harness the power of reflection to develop thoughtful, deliberative beginning teachers 596 of reading, then we need to secure a s...