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What's reading proficiency?

It's an individual's ability to use reading to satisfy their needs in terms of inclusion and growth, i.e. for enjoyment, for resolving everyday problems and for learning, a challenge that humans face each day of our lives.

So, how would you define a good reader?

Someone who can use reading in the multiple, varied ways I just mentioned, and who's capable of using it not only because others require them to, but also because they take pleasure from doing so. A good reader's a person for whom reading isn't just a means of finding out what others think or say, but also a basis for reflection on their own thoughts, for asking themselves questions and answering them, and for broadening their knowledge and their outlook on life and reality.

How do you become a good reader?

You learn to be a good reader over time and through different reading situations. I don't know if reading's a habit. For me, it's primarily a desire. The need to be able to use reading's evidently also part of becoming a good reader. There's an element of utilitarianism which can't be overlooked, but I don't think teaching people to read should be limited to enabling them to use the skill functionally. We should be aiming for them to use it for reflection and enjoyment. I think of learning to read as a stool with three legs, all of which have to be balanced. The first leg's learning to love reading, and achieving that goes a long way towards winning the battle where the other legs are concerned. The second's actually learning to read, and the third's using reading to learn, not just to know what texts say, but to go further, to be capable of analysing and comparing them and drawing conclusions from them.

Is there a particular age for learning to be a good reader?

You can start to love reading when you're a baby, experiencing it in different situations within your family, where you can begin to form and consolidate affective bonds with the activity. From then on, you never stop learning to read. A reader may be proficient in their field, but when they pick up a text of a different nature or from a new discipline, they have to make an effort and extend their reading ability. Reading shouldn't be thought of as a technique that you learn in one or two years at school and which you'll then be able to apply to any text or reading situation whatsoever, but rather as a lengthy process in which you gradually master new aspects of this fascinating skill.

Do we go through our entire lives learning to read?

Yes, but it isn't something that just happens. If you always read the same kind of things, you'll develop effective strategies for those texts but you won't further your reading skills. Reading the Odyssey isn't the same as reading a bestseller. If you make an effort to read texts with a certain degree of complexity, you'll test your reading skills more and broaden them. A text's structure has a bearing on reading comprehension, but it's not the only factor. The same applies to the density of its information; its use of specific or everyday vocabulary; its cohesion, coherence and clarity; how well written it is and whether its content is accessible to readers; whether it's narrative, informative or poetic; and its function. Different texts and purposes result in information being processed differently.

What about the emergence of new media, of technology? Is it changing the way we read?

It's introducing different types of reading. Each technology we use ends up having an effect on our brains, on the way we think. The technological revolution we're witnessing in that regard is no different, although some say it'll have a greater impact than the advent of the printing press. Hypertexts, for instance, lend themselves to a form of reading in which information's processed very quickly and, in many cases, more superficially. If you only read that kind of text, you might become specialised in selective reading. If you can combine it with reading of a more sustained nature, involving longer, denser texts, reading online will be a new way of increasing skills.

Do we learn whenever we read?

When you read and understand, you always learn, whether you're looking to do so or not. You don't read a novel to learn things, but if it's set in Berlin in the 1930s, you'll learn things about Berlin in the 1930s. Why? Because as you read, you associate information with what you know and you attribute a meaning to the text. While you read you have certain goals, you apply previous knowledge, you make inferences... you do that implicitly. That's how you come to learn without realising it through comprehensive reading.

Do we learn as much from reading a story as from reading a textbook?

When you read to learn, the strategies you use have to go beyond the implicit level. You have to consciously know what you're looking for in the text, to retrieve knowledge from your memory to help make new information meaningful. You need to be able to separate the essential from the secondary. You've got to be able to make inferences. The whole process becomes more conscious and you control it to a greater extent.

How can we encourage people to read? Whose responsibility is it?

By inviting them to read. By seducing them, by making reading accessible to them. By being their talking books until they're able to read themselves. That will make them take an interest and want to familiarise themselves with books. We all have a role to play in that respect. Although it's very difficult for those of us who love reading to understand that others don't appreciate it in the same way, it's something that happens. Families are very different. Reading has an important place in the minds of some. Others have a different view. That in itself isn't a problem. It would be great to have students who read, a society of readers. If that isn't the case though, we ought to consider that all children have the right to discover the pleasure of reading, and to do so alongside an adult who's significant in their life. If not their parents, it could be their teacher. They all have the right to schools where literacy is taught and learned, and, above all, where reading takes place and is a cherished, highly regarded activity.