THEORIES IN READING INSTRUCTION
BOTTOM-UP READING MODEL

Emphasizes a single direction

Emphasizes the written or printed texts

Reading is driven by a process that results in
meaning

PART TO WHOLE MODEL
FEATURES OF BOTTOM-UP MODEL
Believes the reader needs to:
 Identify
 Link
letter features
these features to recognize letters
 Combine
 Link
letter to recognize spelling patterns
spelling patterns to recognize words
 Then
proceed to sentence, paragraph, and textlevel processing
VIEWS OF SOME RESEARCHERS ABOUT THE
BOTTOM-UP READING MODEL:
Leonard Bloomfield:

the first task of reading is learning the code or the
alphabetical principle.
 The
meaning of the text is expected to come
naturally as the code is broken based on the
reader’s prior knowledge of words, their meaning
and the syntactical patterns of his or her language.

Writing is merely a device for recording speech
Emerald Dechant:
“
Bottom-up models operate on the principle that
the written text is hierarchically organized and that
the reader first process smallest linguistic unit,
gradually compiling the smaller units to decipher
and comprehend the higher units.
Charles Fries:
 The
reader must learn to transfer form the auditory
signs for language signals to a set of visual signs
for the same signals.
 The
reader must automatically respond to the
visual patterns.
 Learning
to read…. Means developing considerable
range of habitual responses to a specific set of
patterns of graphic shapes
Philip B. Gough:
 Reading
 Lexical,
is strictly a serial process
syntactic and semantic rules are applied to
the phonemic output which itself has been decoded
from print.
TOP-DOWN READING MODEL
Suggest that processing of a text begins in the
mind of the readers with :
 Meaning An
driven processes, or
assumption about the meaning of a text.
The proponents generally agree that:
 Comprehension
is the basis for decoding skills, not
a singular result
 Meaning
is brought to print, not derived from print
TOP-DOWN READING MODEL
A reading model that:
 Emphasizes
 Says
what the reader brings to the text
reading is driven by meaning
 Proceeds
from whole to part
Also known as:

INSIDE OUT MODEL

CONCEPT-DRIVEN MODEL

WHOLE TO PART MODEL
VIEWS OF SOME RESEARCHERS ABOUT THE
TOP-DOWN READING MODEL:
Frank Smith
 Reading
is not decoding written language to spoken
language
 Reading
does not involve the processing of each
letter and each word.
 Reading
is a matter of bringing meaning to print
Kenneth S. Goodman
“
the goal of reading is constructing meaning in
response to text .. It requires interactive use of
graphophonic, syntactic, and semantic cues to
construct meaning.”
“
it is one which uses print as input and has
meaning as output. But the reader provides input
too, and the reader, interacting with text, is
selective in using just as little of the cues from text
as necessary to construct meaning.”
FEATURES OF TOP-DOWN APPROACH:

Readers can comprehend a selection even
though they do not recognize each word.

Readers should use meaning and grammatical
cues to identify unrecognized words.

Reading for meaning is the primary objective of
reading, rather than mastery of letters,
letters/sound relationships and words.

Reading requires the use of meaning activities
than the mastery of series of word-recognition
skills.

The primary focus of instruction should be the
reading of sentences , paragraphs, and whole
selections

The most important aspect about reading is the
amount and kind of information gained through
reading.
INTERACTIVE READING MODEL

Attempts to combine the valid insights of
bottom-up and top-down models.

It attempts to take into account the strong
points of the bottom-up and top-down models,
and tries to avoid the criticisms leveled against
each.
INTERACTIVE READING MODEL

A reading model that recognizes the interaction
of bottom-up and top-down processes
simultaneously throughout the reading process.
VIEWS OF SOME RESEARCHERS ABOUT THE
INTERACTIVE READING MODEL:
Emerald Dechant
 The
interactive model suggests that the reader
constructs meaning
by the selective use of
information from all sources of meaning without
adherence to any set order.
 The
reader simultaneously uses all levels of
processing even though one source of meaning can
be primary at a given time.
Kenneth Goodman
 An
interactive model is one which uses print as
input and has meaning as an output
 But
the reader provides input too, and the reader
interacting with the text, is selective in using just as
little of the cues from text as necessary to construct
meaning
David E. Rumelhart
 Reading
is at once a perceptual and a cognitive
process.
 It
is a process which bridges and blurs these two
traditional distinctions.
A
skilled reader must be able to make use of
sensory, syntactic, semantic, and pragmatic
information to accomplish the task.