The focus of this paper is on some of the difficulties students experience in learning from texts and in solving other types of academic problems, because of their failure to distinguish between skills needed for everyday thinking and those needed for academic thinking. The paper discusses the types of processing problems children experience when asked to read, suggests that some students have pervasive problems with academic learning because their thinking has all the strengths and biases of everyday thinking, and argues that certain characteristics of everyday thinking are particularly ill-matched with the demands of formal science education. It also discusses interventions for introducing more effective learning and teaching strategies in the general realm of reading comprehension, such as using reciprocal teaching. Finally, the paper speculates on possible extensions of these intervention procedures in fostering problem solving in science and math. (EL)