An Interactive Approach to Teaching L2 Reading: From the Bottom-Up

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An Interactive Approach to Teaching L2 Reading
From the Bottom-Up
Heidi Hyte Brigham Young University heidi_hyte_at_byu
.edu heidi_at_readinghorizons.com
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Webinar Objectives

• Provide examples of bottom-up, top-down, and
  interactive strategies for teaching L2 reading.
• Provide practical methodology and approaches to
  teaching bottom-up strategies in L2 reading.
• Offer rationale for the role of students
  phonemic awareness.
• Offer rationale for the use of explicit,
  systematic bottom-up strategies instruction.

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What is reading?

• The ability to successfully generate meaning from
  text.

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What is fluent reading?
5
What is fluent reading?

• The ability to read at an appropriate rate with
  adequate comprehension (68).

Anderson, N. J. (2003). Exploring Skills
Reading. In D. Nunan (Ed.), Practical English
Language Teaching (pp. 67-86). New York
McGraw-Hill.
6
What is strategic reading?
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What is strategic reading?

• The ability of the reader to use a wide variety
  of reading strategies to accomplish a purpose for
  reading (68).

Anderson, N. J. (2003). Exploring Skills
Reading. In D. Nunan (Ed.), Practical English
Language Teaching (pp. 67-86). New York
McGraw-Hill.
8
What is the goal of reading?

• Comprehension

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Factors that influence reading comprehension
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Factors that influence reading comprehension

• The reader
• The text
• Interaction between the reader and the text
• Strategies
• Schema
• Purpose for reading
• Manner of reading
• Fluency

Aebersold, J. Field, M. L., (1997). From reader
to reading teacher Issues and strategies for
second language classrooms. New York Cambridge
University Press.
11
Models of Reading

• Bottom-up processing (decoding)
• Top-down processing
• Interactive approach

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Bottom-up Processing

• Reader builds meaning from the smallest units of
  meaning to achieve comprehension.
• Example
• letters ? letter clusters ? words ? phrases ?
  sentences ? longer text ? meaning comprehension

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Top-down Processing

• Reader generates meaning by employing background
  knowledge, expectations, assumptions, and
  questions, and reads to confirm these
  expectations.
• Example
• Pre-reading activities (i.e. activating schema,
  previewing, and predicting) background
  knowledge (cultural, linguistic, syntactic, and
  historical) comprehension

Aebersold, J. Field, M. L., (1997). From reader
to reading teacher Issues and strategies for
second language classrooms. New York Cambridge
University Press.
14
Interactive Approach

• Reader uses both bottom-up and top-down
  strategies simultaneously or alternately to
  comprehend the text.
• Example
• Reader uses top-down strategies until he/she
  encounters an unfamiliar word, then employs
  decoding skills to achieve comprehension.

Aebersold, J. Field, M. L., (1997). From reader
to reading teacher Issues and strategies for
second language classrooms. New York Cambridge
University Press.
15
Interactive Approach

• Knowledge base bottom-up strategies top-down
  strategies comprehension

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Which model should be adopted?

• The reader must be competent in both bottom-up
  and
• top-down processing.

Nunes, T. (1999). Learning to read An
integrated view from research and practice.
Dordrecht, The Netherlands Kluwer.
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Interaction (balance) of bottom-up and
top-down strategies
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Interaction (balance) of bottom-up and
top-down strategies
Top-down
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Interaction (balance) of bottom-up and
top-down strategies
Bottom-up
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Interaction (balance) of bottom-up and
top-down strategies
Bottom-up
Top-down
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Interaction (balance) of bottom-up and
top-down strategies

• Top-down strategies
• (whole language
• approach)
• ________________
• Examples
• using background knowledge
• predicting
• guessing the meaning of unknown words from
  context
• skimming/scanning

• Bottom-up strategies
• (phonics
• approach)
• ________________
• Examples
• decoding
• using capitalization to infer proper nouns
• graded reader approach
• pattern recognition

Bottom-up
Top-down
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Models of Reading Application

• Top-down processing
• The kenlig coddlers canly kimpled in the cumpy
  kebs.
• 1) What kind of coddlers were they?
• 2) What did the coddlers do?
• 3) How did they do it?
• 4) Where did they do it?
• 5) In what kind of kebs did they kimple?
• 6) What is the subject? What is the verb?

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Models of Reading Application

• Bottom-up processing
• The kenlig coddlers canly kimpled in the cumpy
  kebs.
• When do you spell words with a C or a K?
• kenlig
• coddlers
• canly
• kimpled
• cumpy
• kebs

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Decoding Strategy The C and K Skill

• C a, o, u K i, e
• cat kid
• cob Ken
• cup kin
• can keg

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Models of Reading Application

• Bottom-up processing
• The kenlig coddlers canly kimpled in the cumpy
  kebs.
• When do you spell words with a C or a K?
• kenlig
• coddlers
• canly
• kimpled
• cumpy
• kebs

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Top-down Strategies Application

• Step 1 Read the title. Predict what the text
  is going to be about.
• Step 2 Ask questions
• - What is your purpose for reading this text?
• - What type of text is this? (A newspaper
  article? A letter? A textbook? A poem?)
• - What is a Jabberwocky?
• Step 3 Activate background knowledge What do
  you know about Lewis Carrolls style of writing?

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Top-down Strategies Application

• Jabberwocky
• By Lewis Carroll
• (from Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice
  Found There, 1872)

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Top-down Strategies Application

• Jabberwocky
• By Lewis Carroll
• (from Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice
  Found There, 1872)
• Twas brillig, and the slithy toves  Did gyre
  and gimble in the wabeAll mimsy were the
  borogoves,  And the mome raths outgrabe.

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Top-down Strategies Application

• Which top-down strategies did you use while
  reading to help you comprehend the text?
• Were your top-down strategies enough to read the
  text?
• What did you do when you came across an
  unfamiliar word?

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Bottom-up Strategies Application

• How do you read these words?
• wabe
• brillig

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Bottom-up (Decoding) Strategies

• Framework of Phonics
• 42 sounds
• 5 phonetic skills
• 2 decoding skills

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Five Phonetic Skills

1. met
X
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Five Phonetic Skills



2. jump
X
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Five Phonetic Skills
3. me
X
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Five Phonetic Skills
4. smile
X
X
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Five Phonetic Skills
5. boat
X
X
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Five Phonetic Skills
1. met
2. jump
3. me
4. smile
5. boat
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Five Phonetic Skills
How do you decode this word?
wabe
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Five Phonetic Skills
How do you decode this word?
wabe
X
X
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Decoding Skill 1
motel
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Decoding Skill 1
3. mote
1. mo
2. mot
4. motel
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Decoding Skill 1
motel
X
X
One consonant (guardian) goes on
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Decoding Skill 1
provide
X
X
X
One consonant (guardian) goes on
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Decoding Skill 2
campus
X
X
Two consonants (guardians) split
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Decoding Skill 2
How do you decode this word?
brillig
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Decoding Skill 2
How do you decode this word?
brillig
X
X
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Bottom-up Strategies Application

• How do you read these words?
• wabe
• brillig

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The role of phonemic awareness

• What is phonemic awareness?
• The consciousness that words are composed of
  separate sounds
• The strategies used to
• Segment strings of sounds
• Discriminate between these sounds

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The role of phonemic awareness

• Why is it important for
• ESL/EFL readers?

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The role of phonemic awareness

• Why is it important for
• ESL/EFL readers?

ESL and EFL learners need to acquire the
knowledge base of English phonemes so that their
aural discrimination of sounds can proceed
effortlessly, quickly, and unconsciously (53).
Birch, Barbara M.  (2002).  English L2 Reading
 Getting to the Bottom.  New Jersey  Lawrence
Erlbaum Associates, Publishers.
51
The role of phonemic awareness

• Why is it important for
• ESL/EFL readers?

Phonemic awareness is an important precursor for
alphabetic reading, but paradoxically people
often acquire it as a result of learning to read
an alphabet (54).
Birch, Barbara M.  (2002).  English L2 Reading
 Getting to the Bottom.  New Jersey  Lawrence
Erlbaum Associates, Publishers.
52
The role of phonemic awareness
Why is it important for ESL/EFL readers?

• Readers who have it are better readers.
• Readers are able to connect sounds with symbols.
• Readers can attach meaning to sounds.
• If readers can associate the sounds of words when
  learning the meaning of new vocabulary, it sticks
  better.

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Application Now What?

• 1) First provide explicit instruction in
  bottom-up/decoding strategies, then allow
  opportunities to practice bottom-up strategies in
  extensive reading materials.

54
Application Now What?

• 2) Use shorter passages to teach intensive
  reading skills and longer texts to apply top-down
  strategies.

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Application Now What?

• 3) Select materials for both intensive (teaching
  explicit strategies) and extensive (application
  of strategies) purposes. One single text
  generally cannot meet both needs.

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Application Now What?

• 4) When teaching new vocabulary, provide explicit
  decoding strategies to enable learners to develop
  phonemic awareness.
• - rhyming games (mat ? pat)
• - manipulation of beginning, middle, and end of
  words (mat ? pat ? pet ? pen)

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Self Reflection

• Take a moment to ponder the answers to the
  questions on the following slide. As you answer
  these questions, think of your students needs.
  What kind of strategies do you need to equip your
  students with in order to help them achieve the
  goal of comprehension?

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Self Reflection

• 1) What strategies do YOU use to teach reading?

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Self Reflection

• 1) What strategies do YOU use to teach reading?
• 2) When you learned how to read, did you learn
  both bottom-up and top-down skills?

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Self Reflection

• 1) What strategies do YOU use to teach reading?
• 2) When you learned how to read, did you learn
  both bottom-up and top-down skills?
• 3) When you teach reading, do you rely more on
  teaching top-down strategies? If so, why?

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Self Reflection

• 1) What strategies do YOU use to teach reading?
• 2) When you learned how to read, did you learn
  both bottom-up and top-down skills?
• 3) When you teach reading, do you rely more on
  teaching top-down strategies? If so, why?
• 4) Are you an interactive reading teacher?

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Why bottom-up?

• Despite the emergence of interactive models, I
  am concerned that much of the second language
  reading literature continues to exhibit a
  strongly top-down bias This research has
  resulted in many useful insights, but the lack of
  attention to decoding problems has, I think,
  produced a somewhat distorted picture of the true
  range of problems second language readers face
  (95).

Eskey, D. (1993). Holding in the bottom An
interactive approach to the language problems of
second language readers. In P. Carrell, J.
Devine, D. Eskey (Eds.), Interactive approaches
to second language reading (pp. 93-100).
Cambridge, England Cambridge University Press.
63
Why bottom-up?

• In practical terms, my concern is thus to keep
  the language in the teaching of second language
  reading. That may not sound very controversial,
  but I think that in promoting higher-level
  strategies--like predicting from context or the
  use of schemata and other kinds of background
  knowledge--some researchers have been sending a
  message to teachers that the teaching of reading
  to second language readers is mostly just a mater
  of providing them with the right background
  knowledge for any texts they must read, and
  encouraging them to make full use of that
  knowledge in decoding those texts. Though that
  is certainly important, it is also, I think,
  potentially misleading as a total approachWe
  must not, I believe, lose sight of the fact that
  language is a major problem in second language
  reading, and that even educated guessing at
  meaning is not a substitute for accurate
  decoding (97).

Eskey, D. (1993). Holding in the bottom An
interactive approach to the language problems of
second language readers. In P. Carrell, J.
Devine, D. Eskey (Eds.), Interactive approaches
to second language reading (pp. 93-100).
Cambridge, England Cambridge University Press.
64
Whats your opinion?

• The introduction of top-down processing has
  had such a profound impact on second language
  reading that there has been a tendency to view
  the introduction of a strong top-down processing
  perspective as a substitute for the bottom-up,
  decoding view of reading, rather than its
  complement (3-4).

Carrell, P. (1993). Introduction Interactive
approaches to second language reading. In P.
Carrell, J. Devine, D. Eskey (Eds.),
Interactive approaches to second language reading
(pp. 1-7). Cambridge, England ambridge
University Press.
65
Sources

• Aebersold, J. Field, M. L., (1997). From reader
  to reading teacher Issues and strategies for
  second language classrooms. New York Cambridge
  University Press.
• Anderson, N. J. (2003). Exploring Skills
  Reading. In D. Nunan (Ed.), Practical English
  Language Teaching (pp. 67-86). New York
  McGraw-Hill.
• Birch, B. M, (2002). English L2 Reading
  Getting to the Bottom. Mahwah, New Jersey
  Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
• Carrell, P. (1993). Introduction Interactive
  approaches to second language reading. In P.
  Carrell, J. Devine, D. Eskey (Eds.),
  Interactive approaches to second language reading
  (pp. 1-7). Cambridge, England Cambridge
  University Press.
• Eskey, D. (1993). Holding in the bottom An
  interactive approach to the language problems of
  second language readers. In P. Carrell, J.
  Devine, D. Eskey (Eds.), Interactive approaches
  to second language reading (pp. 93-100).
  Cambridge, England Cambridge University Press.
• Nunes, T. (1999). Learning to read An
  integrated view from research and practice.
  Dordrecht, The Netherlands Kluwer.