Reading comprehension is the ability to process text, understand its meaning, and to integrate with what the reader already knows. Some of the fundamental skills required in efficient reading comprehension are the ability to: know the meaning of words, understand the meaning of a word from a discourse context, follow the organization of a passage and to identify antecedents and references in it, draw inferences from a passage about its contents, identify the main thought of a passage, answer questions answered in a passage, recognize the literary devices or propositional structures used in a passage and determine its tone, understand the situational mood (agents, objects, temporal and spatial reference points, casual and intentional inflections, etc.) conveyed for assertions, questioning, commanding, refraining, etc., and determine the writer's purpose, intent, and point of view, and draw inferences about the writer (discourse-semantics). There are many reading strategies to improve reading comprehension and inferences, including improving one's vocabulary, critical text analysis (intertextuality, actual events vs. narration of events, etc.), and practicing deep reading. The ability to comprehend text is influenced by the readers' skills and their ability to process information. If word recognition is difficult, students use too much of their processing capacity to read individual words which interferes with their ability to comprehend what is read. Overview Some people learn comprehension skills through education or instruction and others learn through direct experiences. Proficient reading depends on the ability to recognize words quickly and effortlessly. It is also determined by an individual's cognitive development, which is "the construction of thought processes". There are specific characteristics that determine how successfully an individual will comprehend text, including prior knowledge about the subject, well-developed language, and the ability to make inferences from methodical questioning & monitoring comprehension like: "Why is this important?" and "Do I need to read the entire text?" are examples of passage questioning. Instruction for comprehension strategy often involves initially aiding the students by social and imitation learning, wherein teachers explain genre styles and model both top-down and bottom-up strategies, and familiarize students with a required complexity of text comprehension. After the contiguity interface, the second stage involves the gradual release of responsibility wherein over time teachers give students individual responsibility for using the learned strategies independently with remedial instruction as required and this helps in error management. The final stage involves leading the students to a self-regulated learning state with more and more