Thursday 19 July 2012
Reading is a basic life skill. It is a cornerstone for a child's success in school, and, indeed, throughout life. Without the ability to read well, opportunities for personal fulfillment and job success inevitably will be lost. --Becoming a Nation of Readers: The Report of the Commission on Reading
Richard Anderson and the Commission on Reading define reading as the process of constructing meaning from written texts. Skilled reading is
constructive: learning to reason about written material using knowledge from everyday life and from disciplined fields of study;
fluent: mastery of basic processes to the point where they are automatic so that attention is freed for the analysis of meaning;
strategic: controlling one’s reading in relation to one’s purpose, the nature of the material and whether one is comprehending;
motivated: able to sustain attention and learning that written material can be interesting and informative; and
a lifelong pursuit: continuous practices, development, and refinement.
