ABSTRACT
This chapter aims to illustrate two complementary approaches: new literacy studies (NLS) and a social semiotic approach to multimodality (SSMM). It presents the term reading both as a fairly neutral description of an activity and as a topic for theoretical attention. The chapter provides a view of reading through the lens of NLS and SSMM and show how these two approaches may be integrated. It presents an overview of ages and stages of reading, from early childhood literacies to youth literacies to adult academic literacies, and tries to account for reading in different social settings. The chapter offers an integrated model of reading and of the reading process rooted in an epistemology that draws on both NLS and SSMM as a viable frame for thinking about reading in new times. It concludes with a discussion of ways forward with literacy, pedagogy, and policy.
