ABSTRACT
Most people would say they know what the word comprehension means, at least in a general sense, although it is not a term that occurs often in everyday speech. In fact, it is almost exclusively found in the context of reading. In everyday speech we are much more likely to use the term understanding (as I have done in the title of this book) or even my preferred alternative of making sense. The word comprehension was rarely used in the research literature on reading before the 1950s, when systems analysts and behavioral engineers were first recruited to design reading programs (Smith, 1998, p. 116).
