Reading has become the focal issue of EFL.  Reading is a multi-level interactive process. A text must be analysed on various levels.  The interaction of text-based and knowledge-based processed is essential.

The reading comprehension process may be outlined as follows:

1. The Universe of Texts

• Identifying text type
• Understanding the importance of the date of publication
• Pictures and illustrations
• Graphs, charts and tables

• Guessing word meanings (guessing the meaning of nonsense words, the meaning of a  word from its context, breaking up words to guesss their meaning/morphology,  definitions)
• Prediction (titles, headlines, using connectors to predict, prediction based on content  words, using contextual clues, prediction while reading, checking hypotheses against  the text).
• Inference and implicit information

• Locating the main idea (discourse markers that signal main idea)
• Skimming
• Recognizing generalizations, recognizing examples & supporting details
• Reading for factual information
• Scanning
• Classification, comparison and contrast
• Definitions

• Coherence and cohesion
• Cause and effect (discourse markers that signal cause and effect relationship)
• References: anaphora and cataphora
• Logical and chronological sequencing
• Summarizing and text mapping

• Facts vs. opinion
• Point of view
• Refutation
• Awareness of writer’s mood
• Word Connotation
• Awareness of genre