Comprehension is the reason for reading. If readers can read the words but do not understand or connect to what they are reading, they are not really reading. Good readers are both purposeful and active and have the skills to absorb what they read, analyse it, make sense of it, and make it their own.

Comprehension is not about remembering sentences from a story word for word. After reading we generally remember an overall representation of the meaning that has been derived from the text. This isn't just true after we have finished reading. We mentally construct and update a model of what we have understood from a text while we are in the process of reading it. This view sees the language in a text less as something to be stored directly and more as instructions on how to create a mental representation of the situation being described.

(The Art & Science of Teaching Primary Reading, Christopher Such)