This article explains how teachers can understand, notice, and supportively respond to readers who struggle with self‐monitoring during text reading. The unique strategic processing demands for readers who struggle support the argument that teaching children to find and notice errors is different than fixing a word, or getting it right. Three critical attributes of teaching for self‐monitoring based on the important works of Peter Johnston and Marie Clay are put forth: teacher observation and hypothesizing, noticing and naming, and teaching for strategic activity and agency. Teaching examples provide a frame for critical attributes to guide professional conversations around self‐monitoring.