Teachers regularly attest to the challenges experienced in supporting both reading comprehension and engagement. In this article, we describe a ten-week intervention, conducted in a classroom in a DEIS Band 1 school, consisting of 13 pupils, aged between nine and 11 years old, which explored the effect of teaching reading comprehension strategies explicitly on enabling children to gain a better understanding of text. Based on the Transactional Strategy Instruction framework (Brown et al., 1996), pupils were supported in using strategies in small, mixed-ability groups to analyse and discuss high-quality picture books. Post-intervention measures showed that all pupils showed improved comprehension scores and an enhanced awareness of strategic reading processes. This article also depicts the challenges and successes as documented by the first author, who was also the classroom teacher, throughout the ten weeks.