Reading is a process of retrieving and comprehending some form of stored information or ideas. These ideas are usually some sort of representation of language, such as symbols to be examined by sight, or by touch (for example Braille). Other types of reading may not be text-based, such as music notation or pictograms. By analogy, in computer science, reading is acquiring of data from some sort of computer storage.

Although reading is now a primary means for most people to receive information this has been the case only for the last 150 years or so — with some exceptions only a small percentage of the population in any country was literate before the industrial revolution.

Rates

Rates of reading include reading for memorization (under 100 words per minute (wpm)), reading for learning (100–200 wpm), reading for comprehension (200–400 wpm), skimming (400–700 wpm), and scanning (more than 700 wpm). Specifically, normal reading involves the rates of "rauding" (or normal reading), skimming, and scanning which should be understood as having very different purposes and consequences. Reading for comprehension is the most important reading process because it is the essence of most people’s daily reading. Skimming and scanning are sometimes useful for processing larger quantities of text superficially at a much lower level of comprehension (below 50%).

Advice for the appropriate choice of reading rate includes reading flexibly, slowing down when the concepts are closer together or when the material is unfamiliar, and speeding up when the material is familiar and the material is not concept rich. Speed reading courses and books often encourage the reader to continually speed up; comprehension tests lead the reader to believe their comprehension is constantly improving. However, competence in reading involves the understanding that skimming and scanning are dangerous as default habits.

Types and methods

We can identify several types and methods of reading, for different purposes:

• Vocalized reading combines sight reading with internal sounding of the words as if spoken. It can be a bad habit that slows reading and comprehension, if applied to all reading material, but it can also be essential for reading things like poetry or transcripts of oral speeches.
• Speed reading is a collection of methods for increasing reading speed without an unacceptible reduction in comprehension or retention. closely connected to speed learning.
• Proofreading is a kind of reading for the purpose of detecting typographical errors. One can learn to do it rapidly, and professional proofreaders typically acquire the ability to do so at high rates, faster for some kinds of material than for others, while they may largely suspend comprehension while doing so, except when needed to select among several possible words that a suspected typograhic error allows.
• Structure-Proposition-Evaluation (SPE) method, popularized by Mortimer Adler in How to Read a Book, in which one reads a writing, probably a non-fiction treatise, in three passes: (1) for the structure of the work, which might be represented by an outline; for the logical propositions made, organized into chains of inference; and (3) for evaluation of the merits of the arguments and conclusions. This method involves suspended judgment of the work or its arguments until they are fully understood.
• Survey-Question-Read-Recite-Review (SQ3R) method, often taught in public schools, which involves reading toward being able to teach what is read, and would be appropriate for instructors preparing to teach material without having to refer to notes during the lecture.

Skill development

Several methods of teaching and learning to read have developed, and become somewhat controversial:

• Phonics involves teaching reading by associating characters or groups of characters with sounds. Sometimes argued to be in competition with whole language methods.
• Whole language methods involve acquiring words or phrases without attention to the characters or groups of characters that compose them. Sometimes argued to be in competition with phonics methods. It sometimes argued that the whole language approach tends to impair learning how spell.

Learning to read in a second language, especially in adulthood, may be a different process than learning to read a native language in childhood.

There are cases of very young children learning to read without having been taught, such as described in the book Learning From Children Who Read at an Early Age by Rhona Stainthorp and Diana Hughes. [1] Such was the case with Truman Capote as noted in his New York Times obituary:

After his mother's divorce from Mr. Persons and her marriage to Joe Capote, she brought her son to live with them in New York. He was sent to several private schools, including Trinity School and St. John's Academy in New York, but he disliked schools and did poorly in his courses, including English, although he had taught himself to read and write when he was 5 years old. Having been told by many teachers that the precocious child was probably mentally backward, the Capotes sent him to a psychiatrist who, Truman Capote said triumphantly some years later, "naturally classified me as a genius."

In Gerald Clarke's Capote: A Biography (1988), one paragraph describes how Capote was usually seen at age five carrying his dictionary and notepad. Conversations with Truman Capote has a passage telling how Capote taught himself to read (in a town with no library) by collecting old farm magazines and each day at six pm meeting the bus which dropped off the two newspapers from Mobile and Montgomery. Hadley Bond was a gifted child in Australia who taught himself to read by the age of one-and-a-half, had a library at age two and taught himself math at age three. There are numerous accounts of people who taught themselves to read by comparing street signs or Biblical passages to speech, plus many mentions of Lincoln teaching himself. The novelist Nicholas Delbanco taught himself to read at age six by studying a book about boats during a transatlantic crossing.

Reading assessment

Because reading draws on multiple types of knowledge, it can be tested in several different ways. Tests also vary depending on whether they are used to test children or adults. Standardized tests are normed to a large population of readers, allowing the tester to determine what is typical for an individual of a given age. For example, the average reading ability of children aged 10 years, 0 months will be 10;0. However, a more advanced eight year old might also be able to read at the 10;0 level.

Reading achievement is influenced by multiple factors, and is not limited to a child's general intelligence.

Types of reading tests

• Sight word reading: reading words of increasing difficulty until they become unable to read or understand the words presented to them. Difficulty is manipulated by using words that have more letters or syllables, are less common and have more complicated spelling-sound relationships.
• Nonword reading: reading lists of pronounceable nonsense words out loud. The difficulty is increased by using longer words, and also by using words with more complex spelling or sound sequences.
• Reading comprehension: a passage is presented to the reader, which they must read either silently or out loud. Then a series of questions are presented that test the reader's comprehension of this passage.
• Reading fluency: the rate with which individuals can name words.
• Reading accuracy: the ability to correctly name a word on a page.

Some tests incorporate several of the above components at once. For instance, the Nelson-Denny reading test scores readers both on the speed with which they can read a passage, and also their ability to accurately answer questions about this passage.

Correlations

Studies have shown that American children who learn to read by the third grade are less likely to end up in prison, drop out of school, or take drugs. Adults who read literature on a regular basis are nearly three times as likely to attend a performing arts event, almost four times as likely to visit an art museum, more than two-and-a-half times as likely to do volunteer or charity work, and over one-and-a-half times as likely to participate in sporting activities, according to Jamie Littlefield on charityguide.org[2] Literacy rates in the United States are also more highly correlated to weekly earnings than IQ. A graph showing this relationship is shown here.

Lighting

Reading requires more lighting than many other activities. Therefore the possibility of comfortable reading in cafés, restaurants, buses, at bus stops or in parks greatly varies depending on available lighting and time of day. Starting in the 1950s, many offices and classrooms were over-illuminated. Since about 1990, there has been a movement to create reading environments with appropriate lighting levels (approximately 600 to 800 lux).