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The development of reading comprehension is one of the primary learning objectives in compulsory school, and one for which language arts has a particular responsibility. Yet the knowledge of comprehension-oriented text-based instruction in Swedish language arts classrooms is limited. This article reports findings from an observation study of comprehension-oriented text-based instruction in Swedish lower secondary school. 59 language arts lessons in school year 7 were videotaped and analyzed in the ongoing LISA study. Results from the study draw on a combination of descriptive statistics and qualitative content analysis of selected lesson segments. Findings suggest that a main part of the instructional time is spent either on active use of authentic texts in order to develop deeper comprehension, or on students’ own writing of extended texts. However, the findings also indicate that students rarely are asked to engage in intellectually challenging tasks that require analytic or inferential thinking, and the teachers seldom provide explicit strategy instruction. These findings concern both language arts instruction in general and comprehension-oriented text-based instruction in particular. The article discusses potential areas of development for instruction related to comprehension and interpretation of texts.