Approaches on

Teaching Reading
(Bottom-Up and Top Down)

TOP-DOWN APPROACH
Suggest that processing of a text
begins in the mind of the readers
with:
Meaning- driven process or
Assumption about the meaning
of a text.

Proponents generally
agree that:
Comprehension

is the
basis for decoding skills
not a singular result
Meaning is brought to print
not from print.

It is a reading model
that:
Emphasizes

what the reader

brings to the text
Says 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 researcher

about the Top- Down Model
Frank Smith
- Reading is not decoding written language to
spoken language
- Reading does not involve the processing of
each letter and word
- Reading is a matter of bringing meaning to a
print.

Frank Smith

Kenneth S. Goodman
The

goal of reading is constructing meaning in

response to text.

It

requires interactive use of graphophonic,

syntactic, semantic cues to construct meaning.

It

is one which usesprint as input and has

meaning as output.

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.

Kenneth S.
Goodman

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

rather than mastery of letters/sound
relationships and words.

It

engages readers in meaning activities instead

of concentrating on the enhancement of word
attack skills

The

most important aspect

about reading is the amount and
the kind of information gained
through reading.
It considers reading of sentence,
paragraph, and whole texts as
the core instruction.

Bottom-Up Approach
Emphasizes

a single word
Emphasizes the written or printed
texts
Reading is driven by a process
that results in meaning
Also known as the known to part

Features of the Bottom-up

Approach
Believes that the readers need to:
- Identify the letter features
- Link this features to recognize letters
- Combine letter to recognize spelling
patterns
- Link spelling pattern to recognize words
- then proceed to sentence, paragraph
and text level proceeding

Views of some researcher

about the Bottom-Up
Model
Leonard Bloomfield
- the first task of reading is learning the code or
the alphabetical principle.
- analysis of the code helps in getting easily the
meaning of the text
Writing only records speech

Leonard
Bloomfield

Emerald Dechant
- the hierarchical organization of the
written text is important in reading.
- reading starts with the processing of
the smallest linguistic unit an moves
gradually to putting together the
smaller units, which in resulting and
recognizing and understanding the
higher units.

Charles Fries
- the readers must learn to transfer form
from 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

Charles Fries

Phillip B. Gough
- reading is strictly a serial process
- lexical, syntactic and semantic rule
is applied to the phonemic output which
itself has been decoded from print.
- developing a considerable range of
habitual responses to specific set of
patterns suggests ability to learn
reading.

Phillip B.
Gough

T. McCormick
- positive recognition of every word
through phonemic encoding results from
processing letter by letter visual analysis.
- in reading w eapplied lexical, syntactic
and semantic rules to the phonemic out put
which itself has been encoded from the print

T.
McCormick

McCarthy (1999)
- he called this as the inside-in
processing, referring to the idea
that meaning exists in the
printed page and is interpreted
by the reader then taken in.

Nunan (1991)
- reading is basically a
matter of decoding a series
of written symbols into their
aural equivalents in the
quest for making sense of
the text.

Nunan (1991)

Group 1
Abello, Irene
Alabata, Patricia
Amores, Jacklyn
Antonio, Angelita
Ballungay, Lualhati
Balute, Jessel
Basco, Crista
Berboso, Dyan
Asuncion, Martin

TO SUMMARIZE.

Top-down- emphasizes what the

reader brings to the text, such as
prior knowledge and experiences,
comprehension which begins in the
mind of the reader who already have
some ideas about the meaning of the
text; proceeds from whole part.

Bottom- up-

emphasizes the
written or printed text, comprehension
starts by processing the smallest
linguistic unit (phoneme)and working
toward larger units (syllable, words,
phrases, sentences.)