Gough and Tunmer (1986) proposed the simple view of reading, in which reading comprehension is seen as the product of decoding and listening comprehension. Though simple, this approach does a remarkably good job of accounting for the data (e.g., Johnston & Kirby, 2006; Joshi & Aaron, 2000), and it reminds us that the ability to decode words is absolutely essential for skilled reading; those with either very low decoding skills or very low oral comprehension skills will be poor reading comprehenders. Decoding or word reading is often the bottleneck that prevents readers from attaining higher or adequate text comprehension (see Figure 1). However, listening comprehension, which represents verbal ability, is also essential. Verbal ability is a key component of intelligence, and may be very difficult to improve through instruction; it includes knowledge of vocabulary, grammar, the ability to make inferences, and so on. Decoding provides a more promising and fruitful target for instruction.