While January 1 was a day off for the IVDU LI students, the staff went “back to school” for a day of professional development with Dr. Rebeka Gutkind, curriculum coach at IVDU. The workshop title was definitely an unassuming one: “Reading Comprehension in the Classroom: Understanding what it’s all about,” but proved to be a lot more than the proverbial reading workshop. Rookie assistants and veteran teachers alike were challenged to re-approach their whole mindset to teaching reading comprehension. Because many language processing techniques occur simultaneously during reading, Dr. Gutkind first focused on how to be a diagnostic teacher and do a proper task analysis to determine where the child’s skills deficits are occurring. Dr. Gutkind then introduced a model of literacy that applies to learners at every stage of development. Reading comprehension for students at the early stages of exposure helps take the written word which can be highly abstract and teaches kids to visualize and verbalize what they are reading to learn the nuances of language across all subjects. The presentation was well grounded in theory and was based on the five cognitive processes that occur when reading. Drawing upon her decades of experience, real case studies and fun texts, the presentation proved to be highly engaging and enriching.