THEORIES AND MODELS OF

READING
 Task 1. READ THE FOLLOWING TEXTS
Text 2
I cdnuolt blveiee taht I cluod aulaclty
uesdnatnrd waht I was rdanieg.The
phaonmneal pweor of the hmuan mnid,
aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde
Uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer in waht oredr the
ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoatnt tihng is
taht the frist and lsat ltteer be in the rghit pclae.
The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll
raed it wouthit a porbelm.

(Source:http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/stu/human_mind)
 Task 1. READ THE FOLLOWING TEXTS
Text 2
I cdnuolt blveiee taht I cluod aulaclty uesdnatnrd waht I was rdanieg.The phaonmneal pweor of
the hmuan mnid, aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer in waht
oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoatnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be in the
rghit pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit a porbelm.
(http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/stu/human_mind/)

I couldn’t believe that I could actually understand

what I was reading. The phenomenal power of the
human mind, according to a research at
Cambridge University, it doesn’t matter in what
order the letters in a word are, the only important
thing is that the first and last letter be in the right
place. The rest can be a total mess and you can
still read it without a problem.
 The Traditional View

According to Dole et al. (1991)

• Readers are passive recipients of information
in the text.
• Meaning resides in the text and the reader has
to reproduce meaning.
According to Nunan (1991)
• Reading in this view is basically a matter of
decoding a series of written symbols into their
aural equivalents in the quest for making
sense of the text.
• He referred to this process as the 'bottom-up'
view of reading.
• Bottom – up Model
It is a reading model that emphasizes the
written or printed text. It emphasizes the
ability to decode or put into sound what is
seen in the text.
According to McCarthy (1999)

He has called this view 'outside-in' processing,

referring to the idea that meaning exists in the
printed page and is interpreted by the reader
then taken in.
 FEATURES OF BOTTOM-UP MODEL
• The reader needs to:
1. Identify letter features
2. Link these features to recognize letters
3. Combine letter to recognize spelling patterns
4. Link spelling patterns to recognize words
5. Then proceed to sentence, paragraph, and
text- level 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
Emerald Dechant
• “ Bottom-up models operate on the principle
that the written text is hierarchically
organized.
• 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 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
Philip B. Gough:
• Reading is strictly a serial process
• Lexical, syntactic and semantic rules are
applied to the phonemic output which itself
has been decoded from print.
 Drawbacks of Bottom -up

• The idea of linear processing

• Underestimated the contribution of the
reader
• Failed to recognize that students utilize their
expectations about the text based on their
knowledge of language and how it works
• Failure to include previous experience and
knowledge into processing
 THE COGNITIVE VIEW

• Also known as Top - down model.

• According to Nunan (1991) and Dubin and
Bycina (1991), the psycholinguistic model of
reading and the top-down model are in exact
concordance.
• direct opposition to the 'bottom-up' model
Goodman (1967; cited in Paran, 1996)
• Presented reading as a psycholinguistic
guessing game, a process in which readers
sample the text, make hypotheses, confirm or
reject them, make new hypotheses, and so
forth.
• The reader rather than the text is at the heart
of the reading process.
The Schema Theory of reading also fits within
the cognitively based view of reading.
Rumelhart (1977)
• described schemata as"building blocks of
cognition" which are used in the process of
interpreting sensory data, in retrieving
information from memory, in organising goals
and subgoals, in allocating resources, and in
guiding the flow of the processing system.
Rumelhart has also stated that if our schemata
are incomplete and do not provide an
understanding of the incoming data from the
text we will have problems processing and
understanding the text
Dole et al. (1991)
stated that, besides knowledge brought to bear
on the reading process, a set of flexible,
adaptable strategies are used to make sense
of a text and to monitor ongoing
understanding.
 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.
 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.”
 The Metacognitive View

Also known as Interactive Reading Model

According to Block (1992)
The readers attempt to form a summary of
what was read.
Klein et al. (1991)
Metacognition involves thinking about what one
is doing while reading.
• Klein stated that strategic readers attempt
the following while reading:
• Identifying the purpose of the reading before
reading
• Identifying the form or type of the text before
reading
• Thinking about the general character and
features of the form or type of the text. For
instance, they try to locate a topic sentence
and follow supporting details toward a
conclusion
• Projecting the author's purpose for writing the
text (while reading it),
• Choosing, scanning, or reading in detail
• Making continuous predictions about what
will occur next, based on information
obtained earlier, prior knowledge, and
conclusions obtained within the previous
stages.
• Interactive Model emphasizes the role of prior
knowledge or pre-existing knowledge in
providing the reader with non-visual or
implicit information in the text.
• Also, adds the fact that the role of certain kind
of information-processing skills is also
important.
• Interactive approaches see the advent of the
incorporation of bottom-up and top-down
approaches to reading (Eskey, 1988; Samuels
and Kamil, 1988).
• Both modes of information processing,
top-down and bottom-up alike, are seen as
strategies that are flexibly used in the
accomplishment of the reading tasks (Carrell
and Eisterhold, 1983; Carrell, 1988; Clarke,
1979; Eskey, 1988; Grabe, 1988).
• Hence,the interactive approaches rely on both
the graphic and contextual information.
 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.
• 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.
EMERGING READING MODELS
 STANOVICH MODEL (1980)

Interactive-compensatory reading model.

Readers who rely on both Bottom-up and
Top-down processes are depending on:
- reading purpose
- motivation
- schema
- knowledge of the subject
 ANDERSON and PEARSON SCHEMA-
THEORETIC VIEW

It focuses on the role of schemata (knowledge

stored in memory) in text comprehension.
SCHEMA THEORY
a. relationships among components
b. role of inference
c. reliance on knowledge of the content
• Comprehension = interaction between old &
new information
• Schema Theory: Already known general ideas
subsume & anchor new information
• Include: a) info about the relationships among
the components, b) role of inference & c)
reliance on knowledge of the content, +
abstract & general schemata.
 PEARSON and TIERNEY R/W MODEL

• Negotiation of meaning between writer & reader who

both create meaning through the text as the medium.
• Readers as composers:
“ the thoughtful reader …is the reader who reads as if
she were a writer composing a text yet for another
reader who lives within her”.
• Reader reads with the expectation that the writer has
provided sufficient clues about the meaning
• Writer writes with the intention the reader will create
meaning
• Context is important
• Knowing why something was said is as crucial
to interpreting the message as knowing what
was said
• Failing to recognize author’s goal can interfere
with comprehension of the main idea or point
of view
• Focus on the thoughtful reader with 4
interactive roles:
1.Planner – creates goal, use existing
knowledge, decides how to align with the text
2.Composer – searches for coherence in gaps
with inferences about the relationship within
the text
3.Editor – examines his interpretations
4. Monitor – directs the other 3 roles
MATHEWSON’S MODEL OF ATTITUDE
INFLUENCE

Attitude toward reading may be modified by a

change in reader’s goal. Attitude has
tri-componential construct: - cognitive
component - affective component -
psychomotor component
• A model that addresses the role that attitude
and motivation play in reading
• Attitude intention to read reading
• Attitude toward reading may be modified by a
change in reader’s goal
• Examples:
–Topic of no interest
–Examination on comprehension
• Feedback during reading may affect attitude
and motivation:
• Satisfaction with affect developed through
reading
• Satisfaction with ideas developed through
reading
• Feelings generated by ideas from the reading
process.
• Ideas constructed from the information read
• How the reading affects values, goals and
self-concept
References:
TeachingEnglish | British Council |
BBC (http://www.teachingenglish.org.uk)

Anderson, R.C., & Pearson, P.D. (1984). A

schema theoretic view of basic processes in
reading. In P.D. Pearson (Ed.), Handbook of
reading research (pp.255-291).
White Plans, NY: Longman.