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Reading is a multi-dimensional cognitive process of decoding symbols for the purpose of deriving meaning (reading comprehension) and/or constructing meaning. Written information is received by the retina, processed by the primary visual cortex, and interpreted in Wernicke's area.

Reading is a means of language acquisition, of communication, and of sharing information and ideas.

Readers use a variety of reading strategies to assist with decoding (to translate symbols into sounds or visual representations of language), and comprehension. Readers may use morpheme, semantics, syntax and context cues to identify the meaning of unknown words. Readers integrate the words they have read into their existing framework of knowledge or schema (schemata theory). Other types of reading may not be text-based, such as music notation or pictograms.

Reading text is now an important way for the general population in many societies to access information and make meaning

Skill development

Other methods of teaching and learning to read have developed, and become somewhat controversial:

• Phonics involves teaching reading by associating characters or groups of characters with sounds. Sometimes argued to be in competition with whole language methods.
• Whole language methods involve acquiring words or phrases without attention to the characters or groups of characters that compose them. Sometimes argued to be in competition with phonics methods, and that the whole language approach tends to impair learning how to spell.

Learning to read in a second language, especially in adulthood, may be a different process than learning to read a native language in childhood.

There are cases of very young children learning to read without having been taught.[2] Such was the case with Truman Capote who reportedly taught himself to read and write at the age of five. There are also accounts of people who taught themselves to read by comparing street signs or Biblical passages to speech. The novelist Nicholas Delbanco taught himself to read at age six by studying a book about boats during a transatlantic crossing.  

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