A study of reading habits and interests of civil servants / Noorjanah Morshidi and Hadiawati Abd Hamid

Reading is an aspect associated with literacy. However, the reading process is not simple in its nature.’ It does not merely involve recognizing a single character and pronouncing it correctly or to recognize and pronounce a few characters that are arranged in a particular manner, but more importantly it is the ability to understand the meaning of these arrangements. According to Bullock (1975), reading is more that a reconstruction of the author’s meanings; it is the perception of those meanings within the total context of the relevant experiences of the reader that is much more active and demanding process. Here, the reader is required to engage in critical and creative thinking in order to relate what he reads to what he already knows.