What exactly is reading comprehension?
Simply put, reading comprehension is the act of understanding what you reding. While the definition can be simply stated the act is not simply stated the act is not simple to teach, learn or practice. Reading comprehension is an intentional active, interactive process that occurs before, during and after a person reads a particular piece of writing. Reading comprehension is one of the pillars of the act of reading. When a person reads a text he engages in a complex array of cognitive processes. He is simultaneously using his awareness and understanding of phonemes (individual sound "pieces" in language), phonics, (connection between letters and sounds and the relationship between sounds, letters and words) and ability to comprehend or construct meaning from the text. This last component of the act of reading is reading comprehension. It cannot occur independent of the other two elements of the process. At the same time, it is the most difficult and most important of the three.