The Bottom Up Theory of Reading

Reading is a dynamic, complex cognitive process of decoding symbols in order to construct or derive meaning. It involves the bringing of meaning to and the getting of meaning from the printed page. It is developed based on the background, the experiences and as well as the emotions each child possesses. The process of reading looks at a series of written symbols and getting meaning from them. When we read, we use our eyes to receive written symbols such as; letters, punctuation marks and spaces while we use our brain to convert them into words, sentences and paragraph that communicate something to us. It is no doubt, that reading can be silent or aloud. It is a receptive skill through it we receive information. In fact, it also requires the skill of speaking, that we can pronounce the words that we read. Thus, it is referred to as the third language skill that we learn. It is a productive skill which allows us to both receive information and transmit it. Reading entails different theories that help to encourage and promote reading in schools. Just like teaching methodology, reading theory has their shifts and transitions. It is based on the control of the manipulation that a reader can have on the act of comprehending a text. The theories of reading is 'inclusive of the tradition view', according to date etc. al. (1991), reading in the traditional view allows novice readers to acquire a set of hierarchically ordered sub-skills that sequentially build toward comprehension ability. Having mastered these skills readers are viewed as experts who comprehend what they read. Readers are passive recipients of information in the text. Meaning resides in the text and the reader has to reproduce meaning. According to Nunan (1991), reading in this view is basically a matter of decoding a series of written symbols into their aural equivalents in the guest for making sense of the text. He referred to this process as the 'Bottom-up