This study analyzed coaching conversations and interviews of four coach/teacher partnerships for specific ways in which kindergarten and first-grade teachers, and coaches, conceptualized instructional scaffolding for guided reading. Interview transcripts were coded for coaches' and teachers' specific hypotheses/ ideas regarding instructional scaffolding. Coaching session transcripts were analyzed for coaches' and teachers' actual use, or enactment, of instructional scaffolding. Significant tensions were evident between hypotheses describing the need for high levels of instructional support versus opportunities for students to read independently. Teachers' expertise for effective instructional scaffolding appeared to be assisted by coaching conversations that enacted instructional scaffolding, demonstrating an analytic, evidence-based approach to instructional problem solving. (Contains 8 tables.)