Reading comprehension.

Reading comprehension is the process of making meaning of a text. Although the idea that texts contained meaning that a proficient reader could extract was once a widely held view, in the twenty-first century the influence of cognitive psychology and psycholinguistics on reading studies has led to the commonly held view that creating meaning is an interactive process between text and reader. A major difference in proficient readers and readers who lack proficiency is that the former understand that reading is a process to make meaning whereas poor readers equate reading with decoding—one word at a time—and do not expect reading to make sense. Expert opinion during the 2020s held that children who are not reading proficiently in the fourth grade will have approximately a 78 percent chance of never achieving proficiency. Poor reading comprehension skills have broad implications for individuals and for society. Poor readers are more likely to live below the poverty line, more likely to be unemployed or incarcerated, and less likely to vote or to volunteer for charitable causes.