Making the case that the human achievement of reading has few if any equals, this book uses protocol analysis data related to reading to develop a rich description and understanding of cognitive and affective processes during reading. The book concludes that reading is "constructively responsive"--that is, good readers are always changing their processing in response to the text they are reading. Chapters in the book are: (1) An Introduction to Protocol Analysis of Reading; (2) Methods Employed to Construct a Summary of Conscious Processes during Skilled Reading; (3) What Readers Can Do When they Read: A Summary of the Results from the On-Line Self-Report Studies of Reading; (4) Text Processing in Light of Think-Aloud Analyses of Reading: Constructively Responsive Reading; and (5) The Future of Reading Protocol Analyses: Addressing Methodological Concerns in Order to Advance Conceptual Understanding. Contains 204 references. (RS)