Definition of Reading Comprehension

Before discussing the history of reading comprehension instruction and assessment, it

is necessary to first define reading comprehension. Random House writing, “Reading as
Reasoning,” Thorndike offered us our first professional glimpse into
the mind of the reader. He tried to characterize what goes on in the mind of the reader to
produce the sorts of answers readers come up with in response to questions about what
they read (Pearson & Sarroub, 1998).
In the 19th century, the term “meaning” came into use and in the early 20th
century it evolved into understanding what one read yet was thought of as a product of
reading; the aggregated total of comprehending many small units (Flood, 2003, p. 933).
“Hence, it may be concluded from the studies completed in the twenties that reading
comprehension, at least for mature readers, was thought to involve a series of interrelated
specific skills” (Williams & Wright, 1980, p. 59). Researchers, such as Dewey in the
1930s attempted to better understand the relationship between skills in the
comprehension process. His study using the ability to obtain facts and the ability to carry
out inferential thinking as variables resulted in low correlation coefficients. “He
concluded that it should not be assumed that tests which measure skills in obtaining facts
adequately measure understanding of written material” (Williams & Wright, 1980, p. 60).
In agreement with Dewey’s conclusions in his 1935 study, Feder (1938)
suggested that reading for information and for inference require different mental skills (as
cited by Davis, 1944). The study by Feder was one of the first to use factor analysis to
analyze test results statistically to determine the basic parts of reading (as cited by Davis,
1944).