VMGALICIA-ENGL 504

“READING”
- CONCEPTUALIZED AND DEFINED

• Reading typically is bringing meaning to rather than gaining of meaning

from the printed page. According to Horn, “The author does not really
convey ideas to the reader; he merely stimulates him to construct them
out of his own experiences.”
• Reading involves so much more than recognition of the graphic symbols;
more than the arousal of meaning or the gaining of meaning from the
printed symbols. Effective reading includes experiencing, learning and
thinking.
• Reading frequently requires reflection, judgment, analysis, synthesis,
selection and critical evaluation of what is being read.
• Reading is the process of which information from the
text and the knowledge possessed by the reader get
together to produce meaning.
• Reading consists of two major components:
recognizing and analyzing words, often referred to as
decoding, and understanding the words and the ideas
often called comprehension. Thus, reading is a
combination of being able to recognize and analyze
words almost instantly and to understand what the
words mean when they are strung together in a
sentence, a paragraph, or a long passage.
THEORETICAL MODELS OF READING

Theoretical models describe and

explain how readers construct meaning
from written text.
Murray’s Interactive Theory:
Reading is an interaction involving the reader and
the text being read. Meaning is not only in the mind of
the person reading ,nor is it only in the text being
read; it is instead, the interaction between the text
read and the reader’s various sources that determine
the amount and type of comprehension that takes
place.
(Ehri) : various information sources:
1. Knowledge of language which enables the reader to
recognize sentences and;
1.1 syntax or the way in which words are put
together to form phrases, clauses, sentences.
1.2 semantics or the study of meaning
1.3 pragmatics or the practical use of language.
2. Knowledge of the world/background knowledge:
-including both encyclopedia and experiential
knowledge which supply the readers with the
background for understanding ideas and filling in
parts that are left implicit (assumed known) rather
than stated explicitly in the text.
3. Metacognitive knowledge :
- which enables readers to monitor their own
comprehension to ascertain whether the
information makes sense and meets specific
purposes.
4. Knowledge of the alphabetic-phonemic
(letter-sound) systems :
-involves knowing how the spelling system
represents speech, including how to transfer
graphemes into phonemes, the smallest unit of
sound. Lexical knowledge refers to the readers
dictionary of words held in memory including
words known by sight.
THE ESSENTIAL ELEMENT

(GOUGH’S) Bottom-up model

-focus is in the text rather than what the
reader brings to text. The reader pays close
attention to the words and words parts,
synthesizes them, and gets the meaning of
what he is reading by putting the words
together.
(GOODMAN’S) Top-down model
-focuses attention on the reader. Readers
bring information based on past experiences
with language and their own world to the act
reading. A fluent reader bring more
information to the text than the text itself
provides.
(Rumelhart) Interactive model
-is a combination of the bottom-up and
top-down views reading. Fluent readers use
both text features and what they are bring to
the printed page (experiential/conceptual
background about language and their world) in
order to get meaning.
SYNTHESIS ON HOW THESE THREE MODELS
WORK (HERMOSA):

1. The bottom-up model views that reading

starts with some graphic inputs (print).
Reading begins with the synthesis of letters
into words, words into sentences and so on
until a large enough unit language is
perceived.
2. Top-down model, reading begins with the
readers cognitive structures. The reader
can understand what is on the page only if
the ideas are already present in the
readers mind. Reading begins with the
readers prior understanding and proceeds
to the reconstruction of the authors
message.
3. The interactive (transactive) model
shows that reading draws from the
top and bottom simultaneously.
Thank You 