Reading comprehension is a complex cognitive activity, involving the coordination of multiple skills and knowledge bases. Thus it is not surprising that some children, adolescents, and adults experience persistent reading comprehension difficulties, even in the presence of age-appropriate word reading skills. In this presentation, I will consider the dynamics of reading comprehension from two perspectives. First, the dynamics of reading for meaning. Readers construct the mental model of a text’s meaning, moment-by-moment in real time, by coordinating different knowledge bases and cognitive processes. Tasks to tap the process of reading for meaning can shed light on the locus of processing difficulties that impact on reading comprehension. Second, the dynamics of development. Longitudinal studies of critical skills for reading comprehension reveal influential reciprocal relations during development. The examination of the dynamics of reading from these two perspectives provides strong support for a multicomponential view of reading comprehension.