Introduction to the Special Issue: Mechanisms of Variation in Reading Comprehension: Processes and Products

This introduction to the special issue entitled “Mechanisms of Variation in Reading Comprehension: Processes and Products” defines what is referred to as the process and product of reading comprehension. A specific process model is offered, and five articles are discussed referencing it. Key questions are: a) How to study the process and products of reading comprehension?; b) How are the process and product of reading comprehension related?; c) Is reading comprehension (modulo decoding) the same as listening comprehension?; d) Are comprehension processes and products influenced by the same individual differences? Word Knowledge is found to influence both process and product measures of comprehension, but is described as insufficient to account for the full range of variation in reading comprehension. The need for examining complex texts (e.g., expository genre), which require skill in processing infrequent syntactic constructions is emphasized, as well as methods for examining individual differences in multiple-text learning.