This study examined the match between teacher comment intentions and preservice teacher interpretations of and reactions to the comments. Participants were three students enrolled in a course entitled "Approaches to Teaching." The students were required to keep a reflective dialogue journal. The teacher provided written comments about journal entries on an adjoining page, and students were encouraged to write responses to those responses. As the teacher wrote comments, she made audio recordings of her intentions for each comment. At the end of the semester, students completed interviews that discussed their reaction to the teacher's comments. The study examined data from students' journal entries, student interviews, questionnaires, and the teacher intent logs. The matches between teacher comment intentions and students' interpretations of and reactions to the comments were evaluated according to the following categories: affirmative comments, nudging comments, informing comments, and personal comments. Data analysis indicated that the matches between comment intentions and student interpretations/reactions ranged from a strong match (76%) to a weak match (39%). When the match was strong, there was a strong dialogue pattern and a higher proportion of reflective writing. At times, students interpreted different comment intentions, felt their writing was misunderstood, resisted the comment, felt the comment was blase, or had no reaction to the comment. (Contains 31 references.) (Author/SM)