Researchers have studied the shifts in literacy demands across the school years. In this paper we re-examine those shifts, particularly exploring what we see as some potentially disruptive implications of framing literacy transitions in terms of a 'movement' from one fixed 'stage' to the next. Specifically, we discuss some epistemological and pedagogical problems associated with taking the central transitional dynamic to be from 'the narrative' to 'the analytical.' These problems arise mainly, we argue, from an unnecessarily sharp contrast between narrative versus analytical ways of writing, reading, learning, and knowing. We suggest that notions of 'reparative reading' offer educators bases for recruiting features of this contrast, for more gradually constructing bridges over some of the literacy challenges that the various curriculum areas present.