"Reading as Reasoning"

Abstract

THREE LINES OF EVIDENCE are developed relating to the proposition that performance in reading, at least after the basic decoding skills are mastered, is primarily an indicator of the general level of the individual's thinking and reasoning processes rather than a set of distinct and specialized skills. Evidence is cited from 1) factorial analyses of specific reading tasks, 2) the correlations between reading tasks and both measures of general intelligence and measuring of later academic progress, and 3) the stability of difficulty in reading test items under translation from one language to another. If reading is to be thought of primarily as a reasoning process, this may have implications for the teaching of reading and for education in general.