School-based coaching for literacy teachers has taken on an important role in school reform in recent years. Although the literature contains numerous and compelling descriptions of the perceived, positive effects of mentoring, reviews of the literature base on mentoring and/or coaching over the past 20 years have consistently identified the need for the development of empirically-based knowledge of mentoring. Qualitative research is needed in order to move discussions of mentoring from the abstract to an experiential level in contrast to the prevailing "manic optimism" with which mentoring and coaching are typically viewed. The mentoring and coaching of teachers has become a highly systematic and officially recognized practice. It is within the context of coaches' thought processes that the hope of instructional reform is interpreted and enacted, where coaches coach and teachers learn. Little is currently known, however, concerning the assumptions about knowledge, learning, and teaching underlying the work of coaches or mentors. This paper reports a case study which addresses this area of research through an analysis of the working hypotheses and themes for coaching articulated by two school-based, primary grade literacy coaches over the course of one school year. (Contains 1 note.)