ABSTRACT
Current psychological theories view text comprehension not as a single, unitary process but as consisting of several levels of processing (Kintsch, 1998): A coherent representation of the text meaning must be constructed from the printed words and sentences, at both the local and global level. Because no (readable) text is fully explicit, inferences are required to fill in gaps between individual propositions, the meaning units of language, and between groups of propositions. Further inferences are required to arrive at an interpretation of the text in the light of one’s personal knowledge and experience, the level of meaning representation termed the situation model by Kintsch (1998). Hence, there is more to reading expertise than successfully decoding the printed words and sentences and many skills to master on the pathway to reading expertise.
