Maryland School Performance Program Instructional Update Vol. The complex process of becoming independent readers requires both the automatic application of sound-symbol relationships, and the ability to construct meaning from text. Reading is an interactive process of constructing, extending, and examining meaning using language, life, print, and non-print experiences. Proficient readers revisit and expand their initial understandings.
Proficient readers apply the reading process well to read a variety of texts.
They have developed strategies to comprehend, evaluate, and respond to what they read. Their reading is a lifelong pursuit because proficient readers value the practical benefits and personal enjoyment of gaining meaning from texts. Therefore, all students will become lifelong readers who respond to texts by applying a variety of appropriate strategies to construct, extend, and examine meaning. As a result of these research findings, classrooms across the country are moving away from well-known instructional practices which have endured for 50 years or more, and are being transformed with new instructional practices derived directly from that research. Significantly, since reading is a learned process, definitions of reading reflect differing assumptions about learning, and must include considerations of the various stages of reading development, whether the student is an emergent, intermediate, or mature reader and learner.