ABSTRACT
At first reading was performed aloud with an audience and only later became an individual, private, and silent activity. Children are scaffolded and propelled into the world of storytelling through their early experiences of reading. In the broadest sense of the word, reading can be seen as a basic human function involving pattern-detection, inferencing, and sense-making. The activity of the brain in reading texts involves short-term or working memory to decode and connect pieces of information that are perceived in the written marks and other pieces of information that are recalled from long-term memory to interpret these. Deep reading provides a means to concentrate the mind; it gives a person added focus, purpose, and direction – in opposition to the distraction and chaotic experience of electronic daily life. Words on the page, and especially literary language, can trigger the reader's memory, emotion, and imagination.
