This paper presents a model delineating attributes which enable a literate reader to successfully participate in a pluralistic society. The paper outlines the model as building upon and defining the traditional skills and schema views of reading comprehension which include maturity, attitudes, dispositions, intellectual abilities, knowledge, and experience. In this model, however, maturity emerges as the dominant attribute. The paper examines the attributes of the evaluative reader, rather than the complete model of reading comprehension already developed, and discusses the assumptions and propositions that inform the model. These include the following: (1) the reader is in a continual state of intellectual, experiential and attitudinal change; (2) a reciprocal relationship exists among a reader's attitudes, experience, and intellectual abilities; (3) age is a variable that only partly determines maturity; (4) experience and knowledge can contribute to comprehension when intellectual abilities are limited; (5) experience and knowledge have a stronger effect on attitudes and dispositions than does intellectual abilities; (6) diminishment of any of these attributes limits a reader's ability to understand a text; (7) some texts place more of a burden on one attribute rather than another; (8) some attributes can be enhanced through instruction; (9) the evaluative reader must have multiple literacies that are more than just "basic skills." The paper also describes criteria necessary for a valid assessment of the model. A figure is included. (SAM)