Reading Approaches of Bottom-up and Top-down Essay

In this article, Moats provides an overview of the whole language reading instruction approach as well as a critique of the approach, its shortcomings in literacy based on scientific studies, how and why it is still pervasive in classrooms today, and how educators can fix the situation. First, Moats presents the reader with the background of the phonics instruction versus whole language instruction “reading wars” debate which led many educators to try to synthesize the two different types of language instruction under what she refers to as “balanced literacy”. Whole language is literacy approach that deemphasizes phonics in favor of meaning; advocates of this approach believe that literacy is similar to natural language acquisition therefore children can acquire skills through exposure to print and teaching modeling without explicit phonics instruction.

During the next two decades, the focus of reading instruction shifted away from phonics based basal reading programs. Instead, research suggested teaching children how to think and

Phonological awareness is being able to distinguish the assembly of isolated sounds that make up words and experiment with adjusting the distinct sounds known as Phonemes to form new words (Emmit, Hornsby & Wilson, 2013). Elements of phonological awareness include practice with separating, manipulating and grouping together sounds of words, in addition to exploring words and sounds in an enjoyable way using rhymes (Matheson, 2005). Phonological awareness provides innovative processes for a broader vocabulary and the ability to sound out new words (University of Oregon, 2009). The decoding process that occurs allows readers the ability to then concentrate on the meaning of what they read and improve their reading development (Reid Lyon, 1998). When teaching phonological awareness to children, teachers should work in small groups that explore only a couple of concepts at a time for instance how the mouth moves when saying a variety of isolated sounds in comparison to these phoneme sounds blended to assemble a word (Learning Point Associates, 2004). In conjunction with the familiarity of phonemes and words in phonological awareness, it is imperative to integrate this fundamental feature of reading development with understanding graphemes, and the link to letters in print to their phonemes sounds with phonics (Fellows & Oatley,

The Simple View of Reading (SVoR) model suggests that children must have language comprehension and word recognition skills to be proficient readers, Medwell et al (2014). Jim Rose’s report (2006, p. 40) outlined the Simple View of Reading as a useful framework, which would make explicit to teachers what they need to teach about word recognition and language comprehension (see appendix 1). Before the Rose report, reading was defined as decoding black marks, Graham and Kelly (2012). After this the searchlights model suggested that phonics, grammatical knowledge, reading comprehension and graphic knowledge are equally useful tools when learning to read, Ward (2008). The Rose report’s Independent Review of the Teaching of Early reading reconstructed this model and created the SVoR. Rose (2006, p. 38) determines word recognition as a process which allows you to use “phonics to recognise words” and language comprehension as the means by which “word information, sentences and discourse are interpreted.” The SVoR suggests that, to become a fluent reader, the skills of language comprehension and word recognition are equally important and dependent on each other. Gough and Tummer first mentioned this model, as stated that “comprehension is not sufficient, for decoding is also necessary” Wyse et al (2013, p.

“ Models of the reading process often depict the act of reading as a communication event between a sender and a receiver of information ”(Vacca et al., 2012). Models are developed to describe the reading process and how a reader interprets language and gains meaning from print. Bottom up models of reading “assume that the process of translating print to meaning begins with the print”, where as a top down model of reading, “assume that the process of translating print meanings begins with the reader’s prior knowledge” (Vacca et al., 2012). The bottom up model of reading is driven more by data where as the top down model is more conceptually driven. When using a bottom up model, letters, syllables and words are used in order to initiate reading. The use of letters, syllables and words helps the reader to form meaning. Where as the top down model is based off of a reader’s prior knowledge and experience. With many different literacy programs, a teacher’s belief system helps to determine how students can best be taught how to read. “One way to examine your beliefs about reading and learning to read is to connect them to theoretical models of the reading process” (Vacca et al., 2012). Depending on the teacher, he or she may have a bottom up approach or a top down approach. Teachers, who feel a bottom up method is best, may feel that his or her students must decode letters and words and feel

Phonics advocates have been arguing that in order for children to learn to read, they need to have an explicit instruction in the rules of printed text in order to read properly. The phonics approach has been described as “bottom up” as it teaches the children to decode text and then the meaning and understanding will follow while the whole word approach is described as “top down,” as the children depend on the pictures within the book, form hypothesis and make predictions of the words with the text of the book being read (Wren, 2003).

Introduction: Ways of Reading can be difficult to understand at times, but if you break it down it becomes easier to understand. Some of the quotes written by David Bartholomae and Anthony Petrosky can be used to look at the greater picture and do not just apply to reading and writing. Three quotes really stuck out to me while I was reading the introduction of this book. It was not just because they were great advice on reading and writing, but because they can also be applied to everyday life or certain situations in life. There are lessons to be learned in this introduction such as challenging others and students, understanding that there are different interpretations of things, and finding the meaning as you go along.

The decoding method involves teaching children to read by starting with what would be the most difficult part of reading, sentences. Teachers will read a sentence, break it down to words, then finally break it into syllables and sounds. This method is a top down process in which students progressively work their way down to the basics of reading. They start out with the general and work down to specifics. Unfortunately, this tends to be the way many public schools teach students and could be a possible reason for schools staying the same or falling behind other countries.

You prime the brain and learning systems for optimal learning first. Then you start working on the actual reading skills such as decoding.

Using the bottom-up approach to disseminate the information for teachers and students affected by the Leveled Literacy Intervention program (LLI). Chen (2015) explains that if a “real world program is found practical, an effective evaluation provides systematic and evidence of the of the intervention’s effectiveness long-term and in the real world” (p. 400). Accelerating the dissemination of effective interventions and practices are indispensable to LLI and the improvement in reading achievement (Ng & Bartlett, 2017). The bottom-up reading model ensures sustainability of effective intervention or training and developed by stakeholders and researchers (Ng & Bartlett, 2017; Chen, 2017). Notably, it is the process of getting teachers to collaborate

Instructional processes for reading instruction have been argued about throughout time, though it has since been studied and determined that success in reading relates to acquisition of phonological awareness and word knowledge (National Reading Panel, 2000, p. 2-1). Word knowledge is the association of sounds and meaning, later transcribed to a symbolic system used to decode reading. Though without phonemes, the written language becomes ‘arbitrary’ (Yopp & Yoop, 2000, p. 131). Whilst these features are detrimental to language and literacy learning in

There are several approaches to teach children to read. Explicit Phonic Instruction is build from part to whole; children first receive instruction of the letters with associated sounds, and after they learn how to blend sounds into the syllables and into the words. Implicit Phonics Instructions moves from the whole to the smallest parts: first, students are analyzing words and looking for common phonemes in a group of words. After comparison they assume which grapheme to write and which phoneme to read. Children are identifying new words by beginning and ending letters, or by context clue.

A balanced approach will create a comprehensive reading program for students. This comprehensive reading program will without a doubt improve literacy readiness amongst students all across the United States. Teacher must not neglect one instructional approach for the other. As stated in this paper without a balanced instructional approach a teacher would be taking a risk that may become detrimental to the development of a child’s literacy development. The white flag needs be thrown to end this ongoing war between whole language and phonics instruction. Both instructional approaches must work together to build a nation of children ready to tackle the world of literacy and all it has to offer. Beginning reading cannot be effectively taught with just phonics or whole language instruction. The two combined will be beneficial to a child’s fluency, guided oral reading, vocabulary development, and comprehension. The accomplishment of a child in reading will determine their success in the future. Over time individuals have been going back and forth between the two instruction strategies not realizing that with both you will produce a phenomenal

However, the second method being discussed in this paper, the whole language approach, focuses much of its attention on making sure the student understands and enjoys what he or she is reading. Whole language instruction occurs when a student acquires language rather than learning it through direct instruction (Brooks 35-36). This method is more child centered than teacher dominated, because the objective is for the student to learn how to read through talking and doing rather than through passive listening. Unlike phonics, whole language uses a variety of ways to give students the opportunity to interact with the text they are reading. Questioning, discussing, problem-solving, listening, writing, drawing, and dramatizing are among the ways students interact with text. Students are also encouraged to implement simple strategies while reading such as: reading the sentence and guessing what word will come next, looking at the picture on the page to help figure out the sentence, and also rereading the sentence for clarification. This method also does a good job in allowing the students to engage in text at their own speed and often in their own ways (36).

Reading is believed to be an easy task, something we all learning and develop through the years as we grow, however, is it really that simple? To reading and understanding are both essential when a student begins to read. It is a complex action that requires a multitude of different actions/components, all working at the same time, to become a successful reader. The components that are pertinent to reading are: comprehension, oral language, phonological awareness, phonics, fluency and vocabulary. Without these components, reading may very well be irrelevant because it does not make sense to read and not understand what is being transmitted/relayed. According to the National Reading Panel (NRP), “a combination of techniques is effective for