Uploaded for revision purposes

1. MODELS OF READING: BOTTOM-
UP & TOP-DOWN

2. READING PROCESS: PSYCHOLINGUISTIC’S
POINT OF VIEW
• Smith (1971) described reading as “ the
reduction of uncertainty”.
That is, as we progress through a text, our
choices of what to select are constrained,
often heavily both by features within the
text itself and those external to it.

3. • Smith (1971) has categorized this act of
‘reduction of uncertainty’ under 4 headings:
1. graphic information (e.g spelling)
2. phonetic information (e.g. sounds)
3. syntactic information (e.g. grammar)
4. semantic information (meaning in communication)
• For example:
The captain ordered the mate to
drop an _________
READING PROCESS: PSYCHOLINGUISTIC’S
POINT OF VIEW

4. • Goodman (1967) – looked at reading as
“a psycholinguistic guessing game”
Readers make use of 3 cue system represented
by 3 levels of language within the text:
1. graphophonic (visual & phonetic features)
2. syntactic (possible kind of word order)
3. semantic (meaning of words)
READING PROCESS: PSYCHOLINGUISTIC’S
POINT OF VIEW

5.  Graphophonic cues –hints based on sound-
symbol correspondences that help readers
decode and comprehend a text.
 E.g. scheme vs. school. The blend sch at the
beginning of each word is graphically the same,
but the rest of the word is different. Perhaps the
easiest mnemonic (memory device) for this type
of information is that all the information is in the
form of graphics or visual representations to
which sounds are associated.

6.  Syntactic cues - hints based on syntax that help
a reader decode and comprehend a text.
(meaning of words) - perceive the relationships
among words and phrases, sentences, and
paragraphs. They use their knowledge of these
relationships and of the language structure
(syntax) to help them understand the meaning of
a text.
 E.g. "Once upon a. . ."
knowledge of the structure of English helps us
predict that the next word will be "time." That
prediction is confirmed when they see the letter
"t" at the beginning of the next word.

7.  Semantic cues - hints based on meaning that
help readers decode and comprehend a text.
 Readers associate meaning with a sequence of
symbols (such as a word).
 Here are some examples of semantic cues,
where the meanings of certain words depend on
the other words that surround them:
Can you run the store?
Can you run in the election?
Can you run in the race?

8. •First, readers make use of their knowledge of the visual &
phonetic features of English.
•Then they draw on knowledge of syntactic constraints,
e.g. possible word order in English.
•Finally, readers are aware of semantic constraints related
to knowledge of the meanings of words and what kind of
words collocate with others
Proficient readers use all three information systems in a
balanced way to construct meaning.
READING PROCESS: PSYCHOLINGUISTIC’S
POINT OF VIEW

9. • Psycholinguistic view neglected the social nature
of the reading process.
• ‘Sociolinguistic factors’ – the way written language use is
affected by factors both in the immediate communicative
situation between reader and writer and in the wider
institutional and sociocultural context.
READING PROCESS:
SOCIOLINGUISTIC’S POINT OF VIEW

10. • Kress (1985:44) - “ Although from the individual’s
point of view, his or her reading is ‘just a personal
opinion’, that personal opinion is socially
constructed”
• We share ways of interpreting texts with those of a
similar social class or ethnic group, or of similar
religious and political background.
Thus, in taking a process view of reading, it is
important to see it as involving not just
psychological processes, but also social factor
related to our membership of interpretative
communities.
READING PROCESS
SOCIOLINGUISTIC’S POINT OF VIEW

11. • Textual cross-reference; texts themselves
interact on the principle of intertextuality.
• The production and reception of a given text
depends on the writer’s and reader’s knowledge
of other texts.
• It may also be helpful to know how a particular
text relates to other texts by the same author
and other contemporary genres.
READING PROCESS:
INTERTEXTUALITY

12. • All texts contain traces of other texts
frequently cannot be readily interpreted –
or at least fully appreciated – without
reference to other texts.
• e.g. Academic reading materials
READING PROCESS
INTERTEXTUALITY

13. IN SHORT, READING PROCESS IS
Interactive in several ways:
1. Interaction between the levels of
language within the text
2. Interaction between reader and writer
3. Intertextuality

14. READING MODELS
• A reading model is a graphic attempt “to depict
how an individual perceives a word, processes a
clause, and comprehends a text.” (Singer and
Ruddell 1985)
• 3 types of models:
1. Bottom-up
2. Top-down
3. Interactive

15. BOTTOM-UP MODEL OF READING
• Gough (1972):
• Reading as a process that starts
with the printed material itself.
• Reading is seen as a linear process.
• Print Every letter is discriminated
Phonemes and Graphemes are matched
Blending Pronunciation Meaning

16. BOTTOM-UP MODEL OF READING – ctd.
• Starts with basic skills such as
decoding the letters and the combination of the
letters to form words.
• It then proceeds with a more complex processing
which runs through a series of clauses to phrases to
sentences to paragraphs and finally, to the text as a
whole

17. BOTTOM-UP MODEL OF READING – ctd.
• It starts with the letters being recognized
first feature-by-feature by a visual system,
and then transferred to a sound (phonemic) system
for recognition and held until the next letter is
processed in the same way.
• Consequently, when words are recognised, they are
held in working memory until they are processed for
underlying meaning and finally understood as
sentences and text as a whole (Purcell-Gates, 1997:
2).

18. Letters
Words
Sentences
Paragraphs
Text
Meaning
BOTTOM-UP MODEL OF READING –
ctd.

19. TOP-DOWN MODEL OF READING
• The text is the main aspect of the reading
process.
• Top-down models see the involvement of the
reader’s prior knowledge in the reading
process.
• In other words, the reader is less text-bound.

20. TOP-DOWN MODEL OF READING – ctd.
• Starts with the reader making predictions about the
text.
• His or her predictions are guided by his or her prior
knowledge.
• Rather than decoding each symbol, or even every
word, the reader forms hypotheses about the text
and then ‘samples’ them to determine whether or
not the hypotheses they made are correct.
• If the hypotheses are incorrect, the reader re-
hypothesize and so the same process continues.

21. TOP-DOWN MODEL OF READING – ctd.
• Knowledge of the linguistic form and
knowledge of the world is close and that it has
direct implications on the reading process.

22. Knowledge
Experiences
Emotions
Reader’s Intentions
Meaning
TOP-DOWN MODEL OF READING –
ctd.

23.  The words themselves do not have meaning
 The reader brings personal meaning to the
text from background experiences
Reading begins with the reader’s knowledge,
not print.
TOP-DOWN MODEL OF READING –
ctd.

24. GROUP TASK(15 minutes)
In a pair, discuss and write in not more than
one page:
Strengths and weaknesses of each reading
model (bottom-up and top-down models)