Reading teachers vary in their teaching methods for reading instruction, usually emphasizing either the meaningful functions (meaning) or the technical features (coding) of written language. This paper reviews literature on the meaning/coding dichotomy and focuses on a "cognitive clarity theory" that stresses linguistic awareness and reading-skills development through an understanding of both the functional and the featural concepts of written language. The paper concludes that reading instruction should give equal weight to both meaning and code, so that children understand how reading tasks integrate both aspects. (RL)