ABSTRACT
The power of language users to fill knowledge gaps with missing elements, to infer unstated meanings and underlying structures, and to deal with novel experiences, novel thoughts, and novel emotions derives from the ability to predict, to guess, to take risks, to go beyond observable data. Sooner or later all attempts to understand language—its development and its function as the medium of human communication—must confront linguistic reality. Oral readers are engaged in comprehending written language while they produce oral responses. Reading does not simply know sounds, words, sentences, and the abstract parts of language that can be studied by linguists. Reading involves the interrelationship of all the language systems. All readers use graphic information to various degrees. The integration of all the language systems is necessary in order for reading to take place. Too much research on language and language learning is still concerned with isolated sounds, letters, word parts, words, and even sentences.
