Rosenblatt's transactional theory and Pike's aesthetic model of reading both put the reader at the heart of the reading transaction. A re-envisionment of these approaches in terms of the pragmatist reader, a concept derived from Norbert Wiley's "pragmatism's self" and the findings of a recent case study into classroom reading, leads to a view of meaning-making during reading events as dialogic, deploying Peirce's "internal conversation" in close association with interpersonal activity. It is also reflexive, textured and multimodal, and contributes to the evolution of the self. The pragmatist reader has significant implications for the way both reading and other forms of meaning-making are nurtured in the classroom. A fully dialogical view of meaning-making is called for, which gives equal weight to the pupil as both respondee and initiator in classroom meaning-making, and which acknowledges the role of intrapersonal meaning-making in the evolution of the learner's self.