What is Reading?

     Reading is something I have always taken for granted. It feels so natural, so easy, and so fun! Do you ever think about how you acquired your reading skills? If you're like most people, you probably don't. But, now you're thinking about it. In everything I've encountered and read (including Amy Benjamin's perspective), reading is a developmental process. The National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) defines reading as "...a complex, purposeful, social and cognitive process in which readers simultaneously use their knowledge of spoken and written language, their knowledge of the topic of the text, and their knowledge of their culture to construct meaning... A reader's competence continues to grow through engagement with various types of texts and wide reading for various purposes over a lifetime" (NCTE, 2006). What a mouthful! So let's take this apart and put in layman's words.
     So, reading is a complex, purposeful, social, and cognitive process. Complex implies that we have to have different strategies in order to comprehend exactly what we're reading. There are endless strategies that you can and may use while you read a new book, a textbook, an article, or even just this blog!

These reading strategies tend to be some of the few ways we choose to approach an article. What adds even more to this complexity of reading is that all these different strategies lead us comprehension results that come from our emotions, how we relate to what we're reading, our motivation to continue reading, our current and past knowledge, and our ability to engage in critical thinking. With how complex our brains are, it only makes sense reading would be a complex process. Not to mention that it's also a purposeful process. We intentionally put these strategies into play to figure out exactly what we're reading. Amy Benjamin describes us as "a hunter, who should be knowing what to look for and, accordingly, should be employing strategies appropriate for that particular kind of hunting."

     If you're like me, you probably thought, reading isn't a social process! I read on my own and usually in a quiet spot. (Or tell yourself you're reading while you continue to binge watch Stranger Things 2) However, Louise Rosenblatt opened my eyes to something much different. Reading indeed is a social process. When J.K.Rowling wrote Harry Potter, she meant to have you feel a certain way about the many different characters. She wanted the story to create certain images in your head. Did it speak to you? In some stories, it practically screams to you! While much of the material you read may not engage you as much as Harry Potter did, there is always a purpose for everything you read. It's a human connection we don't really think about simply because the person is not right in front of us. Once you've finished reading something, don't you go talk to someone about it?

     When it is all said and done, reading is a cognitive process. Certainly we take meaning from what we read, but we also develop on what we've learned. We take the new information we've acquired and apply it to any previous information we have. Our cultural knowledge can change the way we perceive a particular text depending on whether or not we understand the cultural background. If we encounter a text that presents information we aren't familiar with, we may struggle decoding.
    If we view reading as a complex, purposeful, social, and cognitive process, it is only natural that reading is also a developmental process. We continue to learn with every text we pick up. We add more information to our current knowledge that naturally continue to make us better readers through newly acquired strategies. This particular chapter goes into a lot more details on how the text speaks to us. I really like how Amy Benjamin was able to include Rosenblatt, without actually mentioning her. It seems to take all theories into account when it comes to reading and teaching students in reading. Tune in next time as we begin to explore strategies!