Reading

Reading is the process of taking in the sense or meaning of letters, symbols, etc., especially by sight or touch.^[1]^[2]^[3]^[4]

For the town in England, see Reading, Berkshire. For the article on literacy, see Literacy. For other uses, see Reading (disambiguation).

For educators and researchers, reading is a multifaceted process involving such areas as word recognition, orthography (spelling), alphabetics, phonics, phonemic awareness, vocabulary, comprehension, fluency, and motivation.^[5]^[6]

Other types of reading and writing, such as pictograms (e.g., a hazard symbol and an emoji), are not based on speech-based writing systems.^[7] The common link is the interpretation of symbols to extract the meaning from the visual notations or tactile signals (as in the case of braille).^[8]

"the ability to read and write ... in all media (print or electronic), including digital literacy"

[19]

"the ability to ... understand ... using printed and written materials associated with varying contexts"^[21]^[22]

[20]

"the ability to read, write, speak and listen"

[23]

"having the skills to be able to read, write and speak to understand and create meaning"

[24]

"the ability to ... communicate using visual, audible, and digital materials"^[26]

[25]

"the ability to use printed and written information to function in society, to achieve one's goals, and to develop one's knowledge and potential". It includes three types of adult literacy: prose (e.g., a newspaper article), documents (e.g., a bus schedule), and quantitative literacy (e.g., using arithmetic operations in a product advertisement).^[28]^[29]

[27]

(BEE) is a free website created by the Johns Hopkins University School of Education's Center for Data-Driven Reform in Education and is funded by the Institute of Education Sciences, U.S. Department of Education.^[213] In 2021, BEE released a review of research on 51 different programs for struggling readers in elementary schools.^[214] Many of the programs used phonics-based teaching and/or one or more other approaches. The conclusions of this report are shown at the section entitled Effectiveness of programs.

Best Evidence Encyclopedia

^[215] began in 2017 and is produced by the Center for Research and Reform in Education (CRRE)^[216] at Johns Hopkins University School of Education, Baltimore, MD.^[217] It offers free up-to-date information on current PK–12 programs in reading, math, social-emotional learning, and attendance that meet the standards of the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) (the United States K–12 public education policy signed by President Obama in 2015).^[218]

Evidence for ESSA

ProvenTutoring.org is a non-profit organization, a separate subsidiary of the non-profit Success for All. It is a resource for school systems and educators interested in research-proven tutoring programs. It lists programs that deliver tutoring programs that are proven effective in rigorous research as defined in the 2015 Every Student Succeeds Act. The Center for Research and Reform in Education at Johns Hopkins University provides the technical support to inform program selection.^[220]^[221]

[219]

(WWC) of Washington, DC,^[222] was established in 2002 and evaluates numerous educational programs in twelve categories by the quality and quantity of the evidence and the effectiveness. It is operated by the federal National Center for Education Evaluation and Regional Assistance (NCEE), part of the Institute of Education Sciences (IES)^[222] Individual studies are available that have been reviewed by WWC and categorized according to the evidence tiers of the United States Every student succeeds act (ESSA).^[223]

What Works Clearinghouse

Children are expected to learn to read and write as they learned to talk, that is gradually, without a great deal of direct instruction. (However, researchers and neuroscientists say that learning to read, unlike learning to talk, is not a natural process and many learners require explicit instruction. They point out that millions of adults can speak their language just fine, yet they cannot read their language.)^[363]^[74]

[362]

Learning is emphasized more than teaching. It is assumed that the students will learn to read and write, and the teacher facilitates that growth.

Students read and write every day in a variety of situations.

Reading, writing, and spoken language are not considered separate components of the curriculum or merely ends in themselves; rather they permeate everything the students are doing.

There is no division between first learning to read and later reading to learn.^[365]

[364]

the ability to say quickly the names of letters, objects and colors, predicts an individual's ability to read. This might be linked to the importance of quick retrieval of phonological representations from long-term memory in reading and the importance of object-naming circuits in the left cerebral hemisphere that are recruited to underpin a learner's word-recognition abilities.^[432]^[433]

Rapid automatized naming

describes or defines the set of symbols used in a language, and the rules about how to write these symbols (i.e., the conventional spelling system of a language). Orthographic Development proceeds in increasing complexity as a person learns to read. Some of the first things to be learnt are the orthographic conventions such as the direction of reading and that there are differing typefaces and capitalization for each symbol. In general, this means that to read proficiently, the reader has to understand elements of a written language. In the United States, a limited amount of spelling is taught up to grade four, and beyond that "we gain orthographic expertise by reading"; so the amount and variety of texts that children read is important.^[434]

Orthography

Practice: Repeated exposure to print improves many aspects of learning to read and most importantly the knowledge of individual words. It increases the speed at which high frequency words are recognized which allows for increased in reading. It also supports orthographic development, reading comprehension and vocabulary development. Research suggests there is value in reading words both in isolation and in context. Reading words in isolation promotes faster reading times and better memory for spellings; whereas, reading words in context improves semantic knowledge and comprehension.^[435]

fluency

According to the report by the US National Reading Panel (NRP) in 2000,^[100]^[427] the elements required for proficient reading of alphabetic languages are phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency,^[346] vocabulary,^[333] and text comprehension. In non-Latin languages, proficient reading does not necessarily require phonemic awareness, but rather an awareness of the individual parts of speech, which may also include the whole word (as in Chinese characters) or syllables (as in Japanese) as well as others depending on the writing system being employed.

The Rose Report, from the Department for Education in England makes it clear that, in their view, systematic phonics, specifically synthetic phonics, is the best way to ensure that children learn to read; such that it is now the law.^[307]^[428]^[429]^[430] In 2005 the government of Australia published a report stating "The evidence is clear ... that direct systematic instruction in phonics during the early years of schooling is an essential foundation for teaching children to read".^[431] Phonics has been gaining acceptance in many other countries as can be seen from this page Practices by country or region.

Other important elements are: rapid automatized naming (RAN),^[432]^[433] a general understanding of the orthography of the language, and practice.

2000 – The (U.S.) that identified five ingredients of effective reading instruction: phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary and comprehension.^[100]

National Reading Panel

2005 – The report on Teaching reading that supports the use of systematic phonics.^[306]

Australian

2006 – The Independent review of the teaching of early reading (Rose Report 2006) that supports systematic synthetic phonics.^[506]

United Kingdom

is the sense that a reader is combining silent reading with internal sounding of the words. Advocates of speed reading claim it can be a bad habit that slows reading and comprehension, but some researchers say this is a fallacy since there is no actual speaking involved. Instead, it may help skilled readers to read since they are utilizing the phonological code to understand words (e.g., the difference between PERmit and perMIT).^[566]^[567]^[568]

Subvocalization

is the claim that you can increase reading speed without experiencing an unacceptable reduction in comprehension or retention. Methods include skimming or the chunking of words in a body of text to increase the rate of reading. However, cognitive neuroscientists such as Stanislas Dehaene and Mark Seidenberg say that claims of reading up to 1,000 words per minute 'must be viewed with skepticism' and that 'people are as likely to read thousands of words per minute as they are to run faster than the speed of light'".^[360]^[569] It is estimated that the average reading speed for adults in English is from 175 to 320 words per minute.^[198]

Speed reading

is a kind of reading for the purpose of detecting typographical errors. It is not reading in the usual sense, as they may largely suspend comprehension while doing so.^[570]

Proofreading

Rereading is reading a book more than once. "One cannot read a book: one can only reread it," once said.^[571]

Vladimir Nabokov

Analytical reading, popularized by in How to Read a Book, mainly for non-fiction works, in which one analyzes a writing according to three dimensions: 1) the structure and purpose of the work, 2) the logical propositions made, and 3) evaluation of the merits of the arguments and conclusions. This method involves suspending judgment of the work or its arguments until they are fully understood.^[572]

Mortimer Adler

Survey-question-read-recite-review () method, often taught in public schools, which involves reading so as to be able to teach what is read, and is appropriate for instructors preparing to teach material without referring to notes.^[573]

SQ3R

(RSVP) reading involves presenting the words in a sentence one word at a time at the same location on the display screen, at a specified eccentricity; for studying the timing of vision.^[574]

Rapid serial visual presentation

In-depth reading is a method that is used to gain deeper meaning and comprehension of a text, research detailed information for this assignment, and read very difficult sections of a text. Five strategies include the RAP strategy, the RIDA strategy, the Five S method, and SQ3R. This is also known as exploratory reading, which allows multiple people narrower purpose, in order to understand the concepts or arguments of a text.^[576]

[575]

Girl Reading (1889), by Fritz von Uhde. Oil paint on canvas.

Young Girl Reading (1924) by George Goodwin Kilburne

Young Girls Reading (1891) by Auguste Renoir

A Young Girl Reading (c. 1770), oil painting by Jean-Honoré Fragonard

Miss Auras, by John Lavery, depicts a woman reading a book.

A girl reading from the public domain image book, "What Shall We Do?" "Five Hundred Games and Pastimes" by Dorothy Canfield published in 1907 by Frederick A Stokes Company of New York