Reading is a conscious and unconscious thinking
process. The reader applies many strategies to
reconstruct the meaning that the author is assumed
to have intended. The reader does this by comparing
information in the text to his or her background
knowledge and prior experience.
A reader approaches a text with a huge store of prior
knowledge and experience, including preconceptions about
the uses of spoken and written language. All of a person’s
prior knowledge, experience, and values are organized
in categories, or schemata. Each category, or schema, is
connected to many other schemata in a complex mental
network. As he or she notices particular ideas or facts in a
text, the reader matches that information with background
knowledge and is able to construct a version of the text’s