Reading as cognitive process

The definition of reading from a cognitive point of view is the construction of meaning from printed or written message- at an understanding. Cognitive psychologists have been interested in how it is that a reader is able to create meaning from the printed page. The activities of the brain can only be viewed unhelpfully as bursts of electrical energy. The detective work carried out by cognitive psychologists, therefore, is done in metaphorical terms. Over the past forty years, scores of models of the reading process have been produced. Although essentially works of imagination, models are based on what can we observed about reading. They seek to explain such phenomena as the mistakes and self-corrections people make when reading aloud, or the way the eyes dart along lines of print. These models, then, are reality-based speculations that “combine findings from many studies into a single coherent system”.