Bottom-Up Model Essay

THE INTERACTIVE MODEL

As seen in the above section, the bottom- up model of reading describes a view of reading as a decoding procedure in which the reader reconstructs the writer’s intended meaning by the smallest textual components – words and sentences. In the bottom-up model, ESL/EFL readers’ problems in comprehension of a text are related to decoding problems of smallest textual units.

According to top-down model, there is an interaction between reader and text, and the reader is an active participant in the process of reading the script. Reading texts are usually loaded with complex language structures, words and unfamiliar cultural points which often create problems in comprehension of the text for the learners.

In the early seventies,

For instance, when a reader cannot build up meaning by using the appropriate content schemata( related with the content area and cultural knowledge) she may utilize bottom-up processing ( by word to word analysis of the text to find the meaning from the text)to make up for the missing knowledge. Similarly, when a reader lacks the bottom-up skills necessary to comprehend a text, she can resort to top down processing to obtain the required meaning.

Research thus suggests that the interactive model is more effective than other models for the following reasons:

• This model allows the readers to bring their own background knowledge and experiences to the reading of a text.

• This model combines both top -down and bottom-up strategies that could provide the opportunity and scope for students to utilize their preferred strategies for decoding and interpreting the

A bottom up model stresses on single direction in approaching a text i.e. going from small parts to whole. It moves from sounds to words and then sentences and finally paragraph. A top down model is cognitive based and meaning driven. It emphasizes to what reader bring for extraction of meaning to the text. In a top down process the reader moves from whole to smallest parts. An interactive model is constructivist-based model, uses both bottom up, and top down processing for dealing with a text. In interactive model there is an interaction between bottom-up and top down processing during processing a text. In interactive model reading is supposed as an active process and its product depends on text, reader and reading