Reading Models: More Than Meets the Eye

There are a various schools of thought on reading cognitive processes.  For example, scholars usually subscribe to either a bottom-up or top-down theory, or a combination of the two.  If one is top-down, theorists believes readers’ factors affect understanding and comprehension (i.e. background knowledge, questions) to the reading task. 

If bottom-up, one suggests decoding words are primary in understanding and comprehension.  Regardless of one’s perspective, our instructions, learning, application, and research are linked to these ideals.  I just wish more exposure would have occurred earlier from a practitioner’s’ view.  So, without much ado, I’ll talk about what I knew, and what I wish I known.      

You Got Reading Models?

LTRE 712 reveals more about reading than meets the eye, or at least my eyes.  As a college student and reading teaching assistant, I have a dual role of learner and instructor.  As an instructor, I assist first year students in learning, practicing, and transferring learning strategies across disciplines (e.g., biology, history, psychology).  My first exposure to reading models occurred in LTRE 719 several years back.  I recall being indoctrinated with Rosenblatt’s Transactional theory.  This theory was my professor’s recommendation and a solid evidence-based reading model. 

In adopting Rosenblatt’s Reader Response theory, I subscribed to a top-down view on reading understanding and comprehension.  This indicated that readers bring ‘things’ to text engagement (i.e., prior knowledge, questions).  As a consequence, the reader is not at the mercy of the banking paradigm.  Yet, I cannot recall the bottom-up theories as much.  As a result, over the years, I became a one-eyed reading theorist and learner.

Reading assistants and learners need a historical understanding of reading models and processes.  While investigating and learning various reading models (Top-down, bottom-up) in LTRE 712, I had a cognitive dissonance thing going on a bit.  The knowledge exposure was welcoming but sobering as well.  It’s all somewhat new as mentioned but learning about it will help me build my toolbox. 

What Matters?

As a teaching assistant, I was on autopilot regurgitating the company’s line on reading and study strategies.  These strategies are foundational and evidence-based and I support them. Yet, in recent weeks, my exposures to additional reading models and processes illuminated a personal abyss.  I needed to learn more about various schemes and their relevance or irrelevance.  Without them, I am not doing my students or myself a good service.     

All models are not designed alike; therefore reading assistants should understand the different nuances. Our 712 class texts are Lenses on Reading (2^nd edition) and Theoretical Models and Processes of Reading (TMPR).  The latter, TMPR, provides a compilation of past and present theories on reading representations and methods, a must have for researchers.  In our previous class, our discussion centered on cognitive processing reading models.  A few models (i.e., Automation Information Processes, Dual Coding) theorized what goes on underneath the hood (i.e., cognitively) of a reader novice and expert alike. I have learned that the field seems still divided over which model (top-down/bottom-up) works best.

Kintsch (2005) suggests theorists’ not waste time on the issue…

“Both top down and bottom processes are integral parts of perception, problem-solving and comprehension.  The question for theorists is not top-down or bottom, but how do these processes interact to produce fluent comprehension?”

The author states quite succinctly that no one model meets all requirements for reading understanding comprehension.  He suggests we must focus on the learner.  Subsequently, what matters is how we learners comprehend text fluently. Our professor has challenged us to create our own reading conceptual model and theoretical framework.  I admit this is the deepest I’ve ventured into such thinking on reading.  My eyes are wide open now.  

BDJ