This paper draws on the findings of the ESRC- funded project 'Teacher-pupil dialogue and the comprehension of literary texts' (award reference R000223563). The study investigated the quality of teacher-pupil dialogue in the guided reading session of the Literacy Hour in England and its relationship to pupils' powers of comprehension. During this part of the hour, the teacher may work closely with an ability group on a reading activity, while the rest of the class works independently. The research team recorded and analysed examples of discussions during the guided reading session in four primary schools, visiting each of them three times. On each school visit, we recorded the same group of six y6 children (10-11 year olds) working with their class teacher. A pilot study by the author showed that discourse in this context sometimes resembled what Bakhtin calls 'pedagogical dialogue', in which someone who knows and possesses the truth (the teacher) instructs someone who is ignorant of it and in error (the pupils). In other cases, it resembled Bakhtin's concept of 'internally persuasive discourse', in which pupils retell a story in their own words rather than reciting it by heart (Skidmore, 2000; Bakhtin, 1981, 1984; Brandist, 1997; Holquist, 1990). The pilot study suggested that these different patterns of teacher-pupil dialogue had educationally significant consequences for the development of pupils' powers of comprehension. Our analysis of the evidence from the main study suggests that teacher-pupil dialogue in the guided reading session of the Literacy Hour tends to resemble 'pedagogical dialogue' more closely than 'internally persuasive discourse'. The teacher: " rarely asks authentic questions; " normally controls turn-taking by nominating the next speaker; " keeps a tight grip on the topic of conversation; and " does most of the talking. Within this general picture, however, there are different degrees of freedom allowed to pupils where the talk departs from the teacher-controlled norm. It was perhaps in their response to pupil attempts to modify the topic that teachers exercised strongest control over these dialogues. Teachers might be prepared to digress from their agenda to incorporate pupils' ideas for a time, but insisted on defining the parameters of relevance which governed admissible topics for discussion. On our evidence, in this part of the Literacy Hour the space for pupils to articulate and develop their own ideas about what they have read is limited. Our findings suggest that it may be timely to re-examine the conduct of discussions in the Literacy Hour, which government guidance advises should be teacher-led. There may be a case for relaxing the teacher's directing influence over the talk for part of the session, and allocating time for pupils to formulate and explore their own understandings of what they have read, in their own words. References Bakhtin, M. M. (1981). Discourse in the novel. In M. Holquist (Ed.), The Dialogic Imagination: Four Essays by M.M. Bakhtin. Austin, Texas: University of Texas Press. Bakhtin, M. M. (1984). Problems of Dostoevsky's Poetics, edited and translated by Caryl Emerson, with an introduction by Wayne C. Booth (C. Emerson, Trans.). Manchester: Manchester University Press. Brandist, C. (1997). The Bakhtin Circle [In J. Fieser & B. Dowden (Eds.), The internet encyclopedia of philosophy [WWW] http://www.utm.edu/research/iep/ (27 July 1999). Holquist, M. (1990). Dialogism: Bakhtin and his World. London: Routledge. Skidmore, D. (2000). From pedagogical dialogue to dialogical pedagogy. Language and Education, 14(4), 283-296.