Reading comprehension

             What is the most salient challenge for future research on reading comprehension?.
             The purpose of this paper is to use the above four questions and the research by Duke and Pearson to examine some fundamental knowledge about reading comprehension. This paper will conclude by examining whether as educators a better job must be done to effectively teach reading comprehension.
             Reading Comprehension.
             Reading comprehension is thinking about and responding to what you are reading. It is the reason for and prime motivator for engaging in reading. What reading comprehension is, how it occurs and how to teach it have driven hundreds of research studies in the last 30 years. .
             There is a historical perspective of reading comprehension. It is seen as a complex thinking process. It is how we come to understand what we read, write and hear. Over time many of the great educational philosophers, such as E.B. Huey in 1908, who said, "Reading is thought getting and thought manipulation." E. L. Thorndike wrote in 1917, "Reading is reasoning." W.S. Gray stated in 1925, "Reading is a form of clear, vigorous thinking." And John Dewey maintained in 1938, "Comprehension is an effort after meaning." Many have tried to define reading comprehension and all these attempts have focused on the thinking aspect of the reading process. .
             When reviewing the research and many books about reading, and more specifically reading comprehension, it is often difficult to find a definition of reading comprehension. Perhaps it's assumed that we all know what it is; or maybe "comprehension" is a slippery term that we have trouble grasping, or "comprehending" (Wilhelm, Jeff 1998).
             Webster's Collegiate Dictionary offers this definition of comprehension: "capacity of the mind to perceive and understand." Reading comprehension, then, would be the capacity to perceive and understand the meanings communicated by texts. .
             When examining the above definition it is safe to say that meaning cannot just be extracted from texts but must be actively created in the mind of the reader from the integration of prior knowledge with the information in the text.