Abstract
This dissertation examines the conceptual foundations of reading, arguing that it constitutes a multidimensional process of meaning-making rather than a unitary skill of word recognition. Through a systematic synthesis of contemporary literature spanning cognitive psychology, philosophy, educational theory, and sociocultural studies, this work establishes that reading encompasses cognitive-linguistic, attentional-perceptual, emotional-aesthetic, sociocultural, and embodied dimensions. The analysis reveals that while educational and cognitive science perspectives have traditionally emphasised decoding and comprehension as core components, emerging multidimensional frameworks incorporate the affective, social, and physical aspects of textual engagement. The findings demonstrate that a comprehensive definition of reading must acknowledge its nature as an active, meaning-making practice combining symbol decoding with emotional engagement, social context, and embodied interaction with texts. This reconceptualisation carries significant implications for literacy education, assessment design, and future research methodologies. The dissertation concludes that understanding reading as a complex, situated practice rather than a discrete cognitive skill better captures the richness of human engagement with written language and provides a more robust foundation for pedagogical and theoretical advancement.
Introduction
The question of what constitutes reading appears deceptively simple, yet it has generated substantial scholarly debate across multiple disciplines for over a century. At its most basic level, reading involves the processing of written symbols to extract meaning, but this characterisation obscures the remarkable complexity underlying this quintessentially human activity. Understanding the precise nature of reading carries profound implications for how societies educate their citizens, how researchers investigate literacy acquisition, and how practitioners address reading difficulties.
Reading serves as the foundational gateway to academic achievement, professional success, and civic participation in literate societies. The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) identifies literacy as a fundamental human right and a cornerstone of lifelong learning, positioning reading ability as central to individual empowerment and social development. Despite this recognised importance, definitional clarity remains elusive, with scholars from cognitive psychology, educational theory, philosophy, and cultural studies offering competing conceptualisations that emphasise different aspects of the reading process.
The academic significance of defining reading extends beyond mere terminological precision. How reading is conceptualised fundamentally shapes research methodologies, assessment instruments, instructional approaches, and intervention strategies. A definition emphasising phonological decoding will generate different educational priorities than one foregrounding sociocultural participation or aesthetic experience. Furthermore, the rapid transformation of reading practices in the digital age, where engagement with texts increasingly occurs across multiple platforms and modalities, demands renewed attention to what reading means in contemporary contexts.
This dissertation addresses the critical need for a comprehensive, theoretically grounded understanding of reading that integrates insights across disciplinary boundaries. By synthesising perspectives from cognitive science, philosophy, educational research, and cultural studies, this work aims to establish a multidimensional framework that captures the full complexity of reading as both a cognitive process and a situated practice. Such integration is essential for advancing both theoretical understanding and practical application in literacy education and research.
Aim and objectives
The primary aim of this dissertation is to develop a comprehensive, multidimensional definition of reading that synthesises perspectives from cognitive psychology, philosophy, educational theory, and sociocultural studies, thereby establishing a robust conceptual foundation for literacy research and practice.
To achieve this aim, the following specific objectives guide the investigation:
1. To examine and critically analyse the core definitional components of reading as identified across major disciplinary perspectives, establishing common ground and points of divergence.
2. To identify and characterise the key dimensions of reading—cognitive-linguistic, attentional-perceptual, emotional-aesthetic, sociocultural, and embodied—as represented in contemporary scholarly literature.
3. To evaluate the extent to which existing theoretical frameworks adequately capture the multidimensional nature of reading in both traditional and digital contexts.
4. To synthesise findings into a coherent conceptual framework that integrates diverse perspectives whilst maintaining theoretical rigour and practical applicability.
5. To articulate the implications of a multidimensional understanding of reading for educational practice, assessment design, and future research directions.
Methodology
This dissertation employs a systematic literature synthesis methodology to examine and integrate scholarly perspectives on the definition of reading. Literature synthesis represents an established approach within educational and psychological research for consolidating knowledge across disparate sources, identifying patterns and themes, and generating conceptual frameworks that transcend individual studies.
The methodological approach involved systematic identification and analysis of peer-reviewed literature addressing the conceptual foundations of reading. Sources were selected based on their relevance to definitional questions, their disciplinary perspective, and their contribution to understanding reading as a complex phenomenon. The literature search encompassed cognitive psychology, educational research, philosophy of language, and cultural studies to ensure comprehensive disciplinary coverage.
Selection criteria prioritised peer-reviewed journal articles, academic monographs, and authoritative reference works published within established scholarly outlets. Sources were evaluated for theoretical rigour, methodological soundness, and relevance to the research objectives. The synthesis process involved systematic extraction of key concepts, identification of recurring themes, and critical analysis of convergent and divergent perspectives.
The analytical framework organised findings according to the major dimensions of reading identified in the literature: cognitive-linguistic processes, attentional-perceptual mechanisms, emotional-aesthetic engagement, sociocultural contexts, and embodied experience. This dimensional organisation enabled systematic comparison across disciplinary perspectives whilst maintaining focus on the central question of how reading should be defined and understood.
The synthesis adopted an integrative rather than aggregative approach, seeking not merely to catalogue existing definitions but to construct a coherent conceptual framework that captures the multidimensional nature of reading. This approach aligns with established practices in theoretical research aimed at conceptual advancement rather than empirical generalisation.
Literature review
### The core definitional consensus
Despite disciplinary variations in emphasis, a fundamental consensus emerges from the literature regarding the essential nature of reading. Reading is not merely the vocalisation of words on a page but rather constitutes an active process in which a person uses perception and cognition to access the structures of a written or tactile text and construct its meaning (Goodman, 2019; Weaver and Holmes, 2012; Barbero, 2022). This characterisation establishes meaning construction as central to any adequate definition.
Philosophically, a person reads when they use any sensory modality—whether vision or touch in the case of Braille—to attend to a text’s word structures in order to grasp its content, with some degree of successful comprehension (Goodman, 2019). This formulation importantly separates reading from mere perceptual contact with text, establishing comprehension as a necessary component. Psychologically, reading begins with visual perception and word recognition, encompassing both phonological decoding and accessing word meanings, and continues into sentence- and text-level understanding (Weaver and Holmes, 2012; Barbero, 2022; Perfetti and Stafura, 2014).
### Cognitive and linguistic dimensions
The cognitive science perspective has generated substantial research on the mental processes underlying reading. Central to this tradition is the recognition that reading involves mapping written forms to sounds and meanings and integrating them into a coherent mental model of the text (Weaver and Holmes, 2012; Perfetti and Stafura, 2014; Van Den Broek, Rapp and Kendeou, 2005). Word recognition represents a foundational process, requiring readers to decode orthographic symbols and access corresponding phonological and semantic representations.
Perfetti and Stafura (2014) emphasise the role of word knowledge in reading comprehension, arguing that efficient word recognition frees cognitive resources for higher-level meaning construction. The lexical quality hypothesis proposes that the precision and redundancy of word representations—their orthographic, phonological, and semantic specifications—determine how effectively readers can integrate words into text-level meaning.
Van Den Broek, Rapp and Kendeou (2005) contribute an important theoretical synthesis by integrating memory-based and constructionist accounts of reading comprehension. Memory-based processes involve automatic activation of information from long-term memory triggered by textual cues, whilst constructionist processes involve strategic, goal-directed efforts to achieve coherent understanding. Skilled reading involves the dynamic interplay of these processes.
The simple view of reading, articulated by Tunmer and Hoover (2019), provides an influential framework identifying two fundamental components: word recognition and language comprehension. According to this model, reading comprehension is the product of decoding ability and linguistic comprehension, expressed formulaically as R = D × C. This framework has proven particularly influential in educational contexts, guiding assessment and intervention design.
### Attentional and perceptual dimensions
Reading necessarily involves the allocation of attention and the processing of visual or tactile input from the reading surface, whether physical page or digital screen (Mangen and Weel, 2016; Barbero, 2022). These attentional and perceptual processes are not merely prerequisites for reading but constitute integral components of the reading experience itself.
Mangen and Weel (2016) develop an integrative framework for reading research that foregrounds the materiality of reading, arguing that the physical affordances of different reading technologies shape attention, engagement, and comprehension. The haptic and spatial properties of printed books differ fundamentally from those of digital screens, with implications for how readers navigate, annotate, and remember texts.
The digitisation of reading has prompted renewed attention to perceptual processes that were previously taken for granted. Screen-based reading introduces variables including backlighting, scrolling versus pagination, and hyperlinked text structures that alter the attentional demands placed on readers. These technological transformations necessitate expanded conceptualisations of reading that account for diverse media environments.
### Emotional and aesthetic dimensions
Literary reading in particular involves energetic and emotional engagement, constituting an experience rather than merely a cognitive task (Maina and Papalini, 2021; Mangen and Weel, 2016; Tarc, 2025). This aesthetic dimension has received less systematic attention in cognitive approaches but features prominently in literary studies and reader response theory.
Tarc (2025) advocates for reviving attention to reading as a phenomenological experience, arguing that instrumental approaches have diminished appreciation for reading’s transformative potential. Reading literature can alter self-understanding, cultivate empathy, and provide access to experiences beyond the reader’s immediate circumstances.
The emotional dimension encompasses both the affects generated by textual content and the pleasures associated with the reading activity itself. Skilled readers often report states of absorption or flow during reading, suggesting that engagement extends beyond cognitive processing to encompass affective and motivational systems.
### Sociocultural dimensions
Reading practices are historically contingent and socially situated, shaped by cultural contexts, institutional norms, and disciplinary conventions (Maina and Papalini, 2021; Goldman et al., 2016; Frankel et al., 2016; Tang, Lin and Kaur, 2022; Compton-Lilly et al., 2020). This sociocultural perspective challenges purely cognitive accounts by emphasising that reading always occurs within social contexts that shape its purposes, practices, and valued outcomes.
Goldman et al. (2016) develop a conceptual framework for disciplinary literacy that demonstrates how reading in different academic domains—science, history, literature—involves distinct practices, purposes, and criteria for evaluation. Scientific reading, for instance, prioritises evidence evaluation and methodological scrutiny, whilst literary reading may foreground aesthetic appreciation and interpretive plurality.
Frankel et al. (2016) trace the conceptual evolution from reading to literacy, documenting how the field has expanded from a narrow focus on text processing to encompass broader questions of social practice, identity, and power. This shift reflects recognition that reading cannot be adequately understood apart from its social functions and cultural meanings.
Tang, Lin and Kaur (2022) extend this analysis to mathematics and science education, demonstrating how reading in these domains involves discipline-specific practices that must be explicitly taught rather than assumed to transfer from general reading ability. Their work illustrates how disciplinary contexts shape what counts as competent reading.
### Embodied dimensions
Reading constitutes a physical, multisensory engagement with books or screens, involving eyes, hands, posture, and affective states (Maina and Papalini, 2021; Mangen and Weel, 2016). This embodied perspective challenges disembodied cognitivist accounts by foregrounding the materiality of reading as bodily practice.
Maina and Papalini (2021) offer a comprehensive reconceptualisation of reading that integrates aesthetic, playful, cognitive, sociocultural, subjective, and bodily-affective dimensions. Their framework positions reading as a practice rather than merely a skill, emphasising its embeddedness in lived experience.
The embodied perspective has gained particular relevance in debates about digital versus print reading. Research suggests that the physical handling of books—their weight, texture, and spatial organisation—contributes to memory and comprehension in ways that digital texts may not replicate. These findings underscore the importance of attending to bodily experience in understanding reading.
### Integrative perspectives
Compton-Lilly et al. (2020) provide an important synthesis addressing the confluence of complexity in reading research, examining intersections among reading theory, neuroscience, and observations of young readers. Their work exemplifies emerging efforts to integrate multiple levels of analysis—neurological, cognitive, behavioural, and social—within unified frameworks.
The educational perspective, while acknowledging complexity, often emphasises practical operationalisation. Reading is characterised as using thought and action to recognise words and understand the message of a written text (Peningkatan et al., 2023; Tunmer and Hoover, 2019; Pandey, 2023). This formulation prioritises the functional outcomes of reading whilst acknowledging both cognitive and behavioural components.
Discussion
The literature synthesis reveals that reading is best understood as an active, meaning-making practice that combines decoding and comprehension with emotional, social, and embodied engagement with texts. This multidimensional characterisation carries significant implications for how researchers conceptualise, investigate, and support reading development.
### Addressing the first objective: core definitional components
The analysis demonstrates substantial consensus across disciplines regarding core definitional components. All perspectives examined acknowledge that reading involves perceptual access to text, mental processing of linguistic symbols, and meaning construction. The philosophical emphasis on sensory access to word structures for content grasping (Goodman, 2019; Barbero, 2022) aligns with the cognitive science focus on word recognition and integration (Weaver and Holmes, 2012; Perfetti and Stafura, 2014). Points of divergence concern the relative weight assigned to different components and the boundaries of what counts as reading proper.
### Addressing the second objective: key dimensions
The identification of five key dimensions—cognitive-linguistic, attentional-perceptual, emotional-aesthetic, sociocultural, and embodied—provides a comprehensive framework for understanding reading’s complexity. These dimensions are not independent but interact dynamically during actual reading. Cognitive processing is shaped by attentional allocation, which is influenced by emotional engagement, which is contextualised by sociocultural practices, which are enacted through embodied interaction with texts.
The cognitive-linguistic dimension has received the most systematic empirical investigation, generating robust models of word recognition and text comprehension. However, this emphasis has sometimes obscured other dimensions equally important to understanding reading as lived experience. The sociocultural dimension has gained prominence through literacy studies, whilst the embodied and emotional dimensions remain comparatively undertheorised despite their acknowledged importance.
### Addressing the third objective: theoretical adequacy
Existing theoretical frameworks vary in their ability to capture reading’s multidimensional nature. The simple view of reading (Tunmer and Hoover, 2019) provides a parsimonious and empirically tractable model but deliberately excludes affective, social, and embodied factors. Multidimensional frameworks (Maina and Papalini, 2021; Mangen and Weel, 2016) offer greater comprehensiveness but present challenges for empirical operationalisation.
The digital transformation of reading practices presents particular challenges for existing frameworks developed primarily in relation to print literacy. Mangen and Weel’s (2016) integrative framework represents an important step toward accommodating technological change, but further theoretical development is needed to address emerging reading practices including social reading platforms, interactive digital texts, and multimodal compositions.
### Addressing the fourth objective: conceptual synthesis
Synthesising across perspectives, reading can be defined as an active, multidimensional process through which a person uses sensory perception to access written or tactile symbols, engages cognitive-linguistic processes to decode and comprehend their meaning, and constructs understanding within emotional, sociocultural, and embodied contexts. This definition preserves the core components identified across traditions whilst acknowledging the situated, experiential nature of reading as practice.
This synthesised conceptualisation avoids both the reductionism of purely cognitive accounts and the dissolution of reading into undifferentiated social practice. It maintains that reading involves specifiable cognitive processes—decoding, comprehension, inference generation—whilst recognising that these processes operate within broader contexts that shape their deployment and significance.
### Addressing the fifth objective: implications
The multidimensional understanding of reading developed here carries significant implications for educational practice. Assessment instruments focused exclusively on decoding and comprehension may fail to capture important aspects of reading development, particularly students’ engagement, motivation, and ability to read purposefully within disciplinary contexts. Instructional approaches should attend not only to skill development but to fostering aesthetic appreciation, sociocultural awareness, and positive embodied relationships with texts.
For research, the multidimensional framework suggests the value of methodological pluralism, combining cognitive experimental approaches with ethnographic, phenomenological, and sociocultural investigations. Single-method studies necessarily capture only partial views of reading; comprehensive understanding requires integration across levels of analysis and disciplinary perspectives.
Conclusions
This dissertation has achieved its stated aim of developing a comprehensive, multidimensional definition of reading through systematic synthesis of literature spanning cognitive psychology, philosophy, educational theory, and sociocultural studies. The five objectives have been addressed through careful analysis of existing scholarship, identification of key dimensions, evaluation of theoretical frameworks, synthesis into a coherent conceptual account, and articulation of implications for practice and research.
The central finding is that reading is an active, meaning-making process encompassing cognitive-linguistic, attentional-perceptual, emotional-aesthetic, sociocultural, and embodied dimensions. This multidimensional characterisation captures the complexity of reading as both a cognitive achievement and a situated practice whilst preserving the definitional precision necessary for productive research and pedagogy.
The significance of this reconceptualisation lies in its potential to inform more comprehensive approaches to literacy education and assessment. By recognising that skilled reading involves not merely accurate decoding and comprehension but engaged, contextually appropriate, and personally meaningful interaction with texts, educators can design instruction that cultivates the full range of competencies that literate participation demands.
Future research should pursue several directions suggested by this analysis. First, theoretical work is needed to specify the interrelations among dimensions—how cognitive processes are shaped by emotional engagement, how sociocultural contexts influence attention allocation, how embodied interaction affects comprehension. Second, methodological innovation is required to capture multidimensional aspects of reading within tractable research designs. Third, the implications of digital transformation for reading definition and practice warrant continued investigation as technologies evolve and reading practices diversify.
In conclusion, understanding reading as a multidimensional process of making meaning from texts provides a richer and more accurate foundation for both theoretical advancement and practical application than unidimensional alternatives. This understanding honours the complexity of human engagement with written language whilst providing the conceptual clarity necessary for productive scholarly inquiry and effective educational practice.
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