This study investigates how cohesion manifests in readers’thought processes while reading texts when they areinstructed to engage in self-explanation, a strategy associatedwith deeper, more successful comprehension. In Study 1,college students (n = 21) were instructed to either paraphraseor self-explain science texts. Paraphrasing was characterizedby greater cohesion in terms of lexical overlap whereas self-explanation included greater lexical diversity and moreconnectives to specify relations between ideas. In Study 2,adolescent students (n = 84) were provided with instructionand practice in self-explanation and reading strategies across8 sessions. Self-explanations increased in lexical diversity butbecame more causally and semantically cohesive over time.Together, these results suggest that cohesive featuresexpressed in think alouds are indicative of the depth ofstudents’ comprehension processes.