Application of Three Reading Models in High-School Teaching.doc

application of three reading models in high-school teaching abstract: how readers extract meaning from a text has long been a focus of attention. various potential theories have been put forward by foreign experts. the major achievements and findings are top-down model, bottom-up model and interactive model. most of the foreign and domestic researches on the three reading models mainly concentrate on the teaching of reading in the universities and colleges, and seldom put them into the use of high-school teaching. the paper is about the application of the three reading models in high-school teaching. a questionnaire is designed to describe teachers and students use of the three reading models, and the application of the three reading models is carried out to identify the importance of reading models in the teaching of reading. some suggestions are proposed to help teachers design their own reading tasks and to help students improve their reading ability.key words: top-down model; bottom-up model; interactive model; reading; teaching 三种阅读模式在高中英语教学中的使用 摘要: 读者如何阅读一直是语言学家关注的焦点问题。 国外专家已经提出了许多种阅读理论。他们最突出的成就和发现就是三种阅读模式,即:自上而下模式,自下而上模式和交互作用模式。国内和国外对三种模式的研究大多是在大学里开展的,而在中学进行的就很有限。本论文介绍了三种阅读模式在高中英语教学中的使用。本论文针对教师和学生使用三种阅读模式的情况进行了问卷调查, 同时利用三种模式在阅读中的应用说明了它们在阅读教学中的重要性。本论文还提出了一些建议帮助教师设计他们的阅读教学和帮助学生提高阅读理解能力。关键词: 自上而下模式; 自下而上模式; 交互作用模式; 阅读; 教学contentsabstract in english1abstract in chinese11.introduction.12. literature review.22.1 reading.22.2 three reading models.33.a description and the application of the three reading models in high-school teaching.63.1questionnaire.63.2application of the three reading models in high school teaching.74. suggestions.104.1pre-reading.10 4.2while-reading activities.114.3post-reading activities.115. conclusion13appendix1.13appendix2.14bibliography.14acknowledgements.15目 录英文摘要.1中文摘要.11.引言 .12.文献综述.22.1阅读.22.2三种阅读模式.33.三种阅读模式在高中英语教学中的使用.63.1问卷调查.63.2三种阅读模式在高中英语教学中的使用.74.建议.104.1阅读前的活动.104.2阅读中的活动.114.3阅读后的活动.115.结束语.13附录1.13附录2.14参考文献14致谢词.151. introductionscholars abroad made many researches on people dealing with information, and raised many different reading models. among them, the major models are: topdown model, bottomup model and interactive model. since 1970, the three reading models have been acknowledged in the field ofreading, and they have a direct effect on the guidance of teaching and improvement in students reading ability. most of the foreign and domestic researches on the three reading models mainly concentrate on the readers in the universities and colleges, and seldom put them into the use of high school teaching. then, how is the application of three reading models in highschool teaching? this paper tries to answer this question. a questionnaire is designed to describe teachers and students use of the three reading models and the application of the three reading models is carried out to identify the importance of reading models in the teaching of reading. some suggestions are proposed to help teachers design their own reading tasks and to help students improve their reading ability.2. literature review2.1 reading2.1.1definition of readingreading is crucial in academic field, and considerable researches have been done on it. establishing a clear definition of reading can be helpful to the teaching of reading. the following aredefinitions of reading. reading is a psycholinguistic guessing game( goodman, 1967), a process in which readers sample the text, make hypotheses about what is coming next, sample the text again in order to test their hypotheses, confirm(or disconfirm) them, make new hypotheses, and so forth.anderson (1999) viewed reading as an active process in which the readers knowledge, skills and experiences are activated to construct meanings in the text.both the definitions agree that without the active involvement of the reader (e.g. employing appropriate strategies), there can be no reading of text, and indicate that reading is activated by prints. simply being able to recognize th e printed words of text without constructing the meaning of the text is not reading, and constructing meaning from a written text is impossible without being able to identify the words.2.1.2definition of reading comprehension reading comprehension means extracting the required information from the text as efficiently as possible. reading is a silent and individual activity since the writers intention was that the text should be read not heard. there are two broad levels in reading: i) visual signals from the eyes; ii) a cognitive task of interpreting the visual information, relating the received information with the readers own general knowledge, and reconstructing the meaning that the writer had meant to convey.2.1.3reading skills reading skills refer to the professional techniques that are automatic. they are applied to a text unconsciously for many reasons including expertise, repeated practice, and compliance with directions.there are mainly two reading skills: scanning and skimming. scanningstudents, like the rest of us, need to be able to do a number of things with a reading text. they needto be able to scan the text for particular bits of information they are searching for. this skill means that they do not have to read every word and line; on the contrary, such an approach would stop them scanning successfully. skimming students need to be able to skim a textas if they were casting their eyes on its surfaceto get a general idea of what it is about. just as with scanning, if they try to gather all the details at this stage, they will get bogged down and may not be able to get a general idea because they are concentrating too hard on specifics.simply speaking, reading means asking questions about the text, while reading comprehension implies the successfully answering of the questions. thus, it is clear that the teaching of reading is not equal to the teaching of vocabulary. many other factors, such as what to read, why to read and how to read, must be considered. so some reading skills are served to teach reading and do reading comprehension.2.2 three reading models how readers extract meaning from a has long been a focus of attention because the process of extracting meaning gives us invaluable information about readers cognitive processes during reading. various potential theories have been put forward by foreign experts. the major achievements and finding are topdown model, bottomup model and interactive model.2.2.1 top-down model definitiona topdown model is a reading model that ones background knowledge plays a more important role than the words and structures in reading comprehension. it is raised by goodman (1967), who once said that reading was “a psycholinguistic guessing game”. features readers can comprehend a selection even though they do not recognize each word.readers should use meaning and grammatical cues to identify unrecognized words.reading for meaning is the primary objective of reading rather than mastery of letters, letter/sound relationships, and words.reading requires the use of meaning activities rather than the mastery of a series of wordrecognition skills. the primary focus of instruction should be the reading of sentences, paragraphs, and whole selections. the most important aspect about reading is the amount and kind of information gained through reading.views of some researchers reading is not decoding written language to spoken language; reading does not involve the processing of each letter and each word; reading is a matter of bringing meaning to print, not extracting meaning from print.goodman believes that: “the goal of reading is constructing meaning in response to text. it requires interactive use of graphophonic, syntactic, and semantic cues to construct meaning.” (goodman, k.s 1981)although goodman is often referred to as a leading advocate of the topdown approach, his model by his own admission is interactive, “it is one which uses print as input and has meaning as output. but the reader provides input too, and the reader, interacting with text, is selective in using just as little of the cues from text as necessary to construct meaning.” (goodman, k.s 1981) limitations the topdown model overemphasizes the background knowledge when we do the reading comprehension. however, it makes students to be at a disadvantage of letters, words, phrases and structures. as a result, students cannot master the basic knowledge very well.2.2.2 bottomup model definition early works in second language reading assumed that reading was a decoding process of reconstructing the authors intended meaning from the smallest units of language at the “bottom”(letters and words) to larger units at the “top”(phrases, clauses, sentences, text). gough proposes what may be classified as a phonicsbased or “bottomup” model of the reading process which portrays processing in reading as processing in serial fashion, from letters to sounds, to words, to meaning, in the progression suggested in the accompanying figure. this was termed as codeemphasis, textdriven, phonicsbased or “bottomup” model. bottomup model places primary emphasis on textual decoding, emphasizes the written or printed text, says that reading is driven by a process that results in meaning (or, in other words, reading is driven by text), and proceeds from part to whole.features the reader needs to identify letter featuresthe reader needs to link these features to recognize letters the reader needs to combine letters to recognize spelling patterns the reader needs to link spelling patterns to recognize words the reader needs to proceed to sentence, paragraph and text-level processing. views of some researchers bottomup advocates believe the reader needs to identify letter features, to link these features to recognize letters, to combine letters to recognize spelling patterns, to link spelling patterns to recognize words, and then proceed to sentence, paragraph and textlevel processing.emerald dechant believes that: “bottom-up models operate on the principle that the written text is hierarchically organized (i.e., on the graphicphonic, phonemic, syllabics, morphemic, word, and sentence levels) and that the reader first processes the smallest linguistic unit, gradually compiling the smaller units to decipher and comprehend the higher units (e.g., sentence syntax).”(dechant 1991)limitations this type of processing leads to four types of inefficiencies. first, the meaning of any word often depends on the context in which it is used. the same word may be used several times, meaning differently in different context. if a word is analyzed in isolation of its context, a misunderstanding of the word, even the sentence is unavoidable. second, the reader must have a much quantity of vocabulary, which is impossible for beginners. generally speaking, beginners have few opportunities to get touch with english, so they own only a few vocabularies. third, lexical access will be faster if the context can be used to narrow the range of the possible meaning (gagne, 1985). and fourth, bottomup processing can be expected to have efficiency since individuals who do make predictions about text meaning tend to have greater comprehension.a comparison between topdown model and bottomup model first, topdown model emphasizes what the reader brings to the text, such as prior knowledge and experiences; bottom-up emphasizes the written or printed text. second, topdown model says comprehension begins in the mind of the reader, who already has some ideas about the meaning of the text; bottom up model says comprehension begins by processing the smallest linguistic unit( phoneme), and working toward the larger units( syllables, words, phrases, sentences). third, topdown model proceeds from the whole to the part; and bottomup model proceeds from part to the whole.2.2.3interactive model since neither the “bottomup” nor the “topdown” model of the reading process totally accounts for what occurs during the reading process, rumellhart(1971) propose an interactive model in which both letter features or datadriven sensory information and nonsensory information come together at one place. goodman,k.(1981) also explained that an interactive model is one which uses print as input and has meaning as output. but the reader provides input, too, and the reader, interacting with the text, is selective in using just as little of the cues from text as necessary to construct meaning. both of them give the definition of the interactive model. definition the interactive model is a reading model that recognizes the interaction of bottomup and topdown processes simultaneously throughout the reading process. it is raised by rumelhart in 1977. views of some researchersemerald dechant believes that the interactive model suggests that the reader constructs meaning by the selective use of information from all sources of meaning (graphemic, phonemic, morphemic, syntax, semantics) without adherence to any one set order. the reader simultaneously uses all levels of processing even though one source of meaning can be primary at a given time.(dechant 1991)goodman believes that an interactive model is one which uses print as input and has meaning as output. but the reader provides input, too, and the reader, interacting with the text, is selective in using just as little of the cues from text as necessary to construct meaning. (goodman, k.s1981)in a sense, interactive model involves two aspects of interaction: the interaction between reader and text, and the interaction of the component skills that work together simultaneously in the process. moreover, a skilled reader must be able to make use of sensory, syntactic, semantic, and pragmatic information to accomplish the task.3. a description and the application of the three reading models in high-school teaching this part is about the description and the application of the three reading models in highschool teaching. it consists of a questionnaire to teachers, a questionnaire to students, and the application of the three reading models in highschool teaching.3.1questionnaire3.1.1 subjects100 teachers and 120 students of middle 1. school in gaomi city responded to the questionnaire.3.1.2 instrument: questionnairea questionnaire to teachers (see appendix1)teachers play a significant role in teaching reading. their guidance influences students attitude towards learning. the teaching of english in high-school helps to improve the students ability of getting information, dealing with information, analyzing and dissolving questions. however, the reading teaching, as a key point of senior english, not only help students learn knowledge and get information, but also help students to use the reading models and master the reading mode and skills. on the basis of this, the paper uses the written form to make a survey into the situation that the teachers use the three models when teaching the reading. the result of the questionnaire is as the following: 50% use the interactive model in teaching 30% sometimes use the topdown model, and sometimes use the bottomup model 10% always use the topdown model 10% always use the bottomup model a questionnaire to students (see appendix2) since students do not have a clear understanding of the three reading models, and they do not know precisely the use of three models in reading, so the paper designs three questions to learn about the situation of the students use of the three models. the result of the questionnaire is as following:among 120 students, 26 students prefer to use the words, phrases and structures to guide reading which is presented by bottomup model. 24 students prefer to use the background knowledge to guide reading which is presented by topdown model. 70 students prefer to use the background knowledge, words, phrases and structures to guide reading which is presented by interactive model.according to the data, it seems that many teachers and students are inclined to use the interactive model while few of them use the topdown model and bottomup model. the following is a description of the application of the three reading models in high school teaching. 3.2application of the three reading models in high school teaching3.2.1 application of the topdown model improving reading speed is a very important task in teaching reading. at present, the senior students are extremely low in reading ability. however, as the development of information technology, people need get much information quickly and improve efficiency. so it becomes necessary to improve students reading speed. however, for a beginner,