ABSTRACT
The invitation by the editors of this volume to write a discussion chapter took me by surprise. I accepted gladly, and I am not sorry that I did: This was quite an educational experience, and I think I have really learned something new. My first task was to figure out why I was invited, since I am certainly not an expert on reading. My guess is that the editors wanted me to provide the experimental psychologist’s viewpoint. Therefore, I will respond to this implicit task demand and direct most of my comments to one issue: the problem of the unconsummated marriage of research and practice in reading instruction. I propose to inquire into the relation between research and application as discussed in the chapters in this volume. In other words, I will ask to what extent the art is a science. However, I cannot quite resist the temptation to step out of my role as an expert on something or other and say what I perceive the state of the art to be.
