This study discusses the importance of comprehension in reading and describes a tool for measuring reading comprehension according to an individual reader's "structures of meaning." The procedure for developing a visual representation of this structure involves three distinct steps. After reading the text, student and teacher employ techniques, such as free association and brainstorming, to discover the items of meaning for the student. Successive sorting of the items, or the use of preset categories, then clarifies the relationships between the items. Finally, display techniques cluster items into distinct patterns of meaning. Once this process is accomplished, the teacher and student use external criteria to evaluate the meaning attribution. The study concludes that this method is valuable in providing the reader with new insights into the thoughts and meanings of individual authors. (MAI)