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We can expect the comprehension of written language to approximate the comprehension of spoken language. When that happens, then reading comprehension has developed, for practical purposes, to its limiting or asymptotic level. (It is possible for reading comprehension skill to develop so as to exceed listening comprehension skill, but that is another matter.) All other limitations are imposed by linguistic abilities, relevant knowledge, and general intelligence. If we make things more complex than this, we push onto the concept of reading comprehension all these other important aspects of cognition, with the muddle that results from conceptual conflation.This simple idea that the acquisition of reading comprehension is learning to understand writing as well as one understands spoken language has empirical justification. At the beginning of learning to read, the correlations between reading and spoken language comprehension are small (Curtis, 1980; Sticht & James, 1984). This is because at the beginning, children are learning to decode and identify words, so it is these word-reading processes that limit comprehension. However, as children move beyond the beginnings of learning to read, the correlations between reading comprehension and spoken language comprehension increase and then level out by high school (Sticht & James, 1984). As children learn to read words, the limiting factor in reading comprehension shifts from word recognition to spoken language comprehension. For adult college student samples,

Recognizing printed words requires the mapping of graphic forms, which vary with writing systems, to linguistic forms, which vary with languages. Using a newly developed meta-analytic approach, aggregated Gaussian-estimated sources (AGES; Chein et al. [2002]: Psychol Behav 77:635-639), we examined the neuroimaging results for word reading within and across writing systems and languages. To find commonalities, we compiled 25 studies in English and other Western European languages that use an alphabetic writing system, 9 studies of native Chinese reading, 5 studies of Japanese Kana (syllabic) reading, and 4 studies of Kanji (morpho-syllabic) reading. Using the AGES approach, we created meta-images within each writing system, isolated reliable foci of activation, and compared findings across writing systems and languages. The results suggest that these writing systems utilize a common network of regions in word processing. Writing systems engage largely the same systems in terms of gross cortical regions, but localization within those regions suggests differences across writing systems. In particular, the region known as the visual word form area (VWFA) shows strikingly consistent localization across tasks and across writing systems. This region in the left mid-fusiform gyrus is critical to word recognition across writing systems and languages.

This monograph discusses research, theory, and practice relevant to how children learn to read English. After an initial overview of writing systems, the discussion summarizes research from developmental psychology on children's language competency when they enter school and on the nature of early reading development. Subsequent sections review theories of learning to read, the characteristics of children who do not learn to read (i.e., who have developmental dyslexia), research from cognitive psychology and cognitive neuroscience on skilled reading, and connectionist models of learning to read. The implications of the research findings for learning to read and teaching reading are discussed. Next, the primary methods used to teach reading (phonics and whole language) are summarized. The final section reviews laboratory and classroom studies on teaching reading. From these different sources of evidence, two inescapable conclusions emerge: (a) Mastering the alphabetic principle (that written symbols are associated with phonemes) is essential to becoming proficient in the skill of reading, and (b) methods that teach this principle directly are more effective than those that do not (especially for children who are at risk in some way for having difficulty learning to read). Using whole-language activities to supplement phonics instruction does help make reading fun and meaningful for children, but ultimately, phonics instruction is critically important because it helps beginning readers understand the alphabetic principle and learn new words. Thus, elementary-school teachers who make the alphabetic principle explicit are most effective in helping their students become skilled, independent readers.

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The relationship between knowledge of word meanings and semantic processes was examined in a long-term vocabulary instruction experiment. Twenty-seven fourth-grade children were taught 104 words over a 5-month period. Following instruction, these subjects performed tasks designed to require semantic processes ranging from single word semantic decisions to simple sentence verification and memory for connected text. On all these tasks, instructed subjects performed at a significantly higher level than control subjects matched on preinstruction vocabulary knowledge and comprehension. Thus, instructed subjects gave evidence both of learning word meanings taught by the program and of being able to process instructed words more efficiently in tasks more reflective of comprehension. The implications of these results for vocabulary instruction and for the role of individual word meanings in comprehension are discussed.