Reading as an interactive process

As the foregoing discussion reveals, reading is a cognitive process, as it takes place largely in the brain. This has made reading of great interest to many cognitive psychologists, and this interest has pushed them to look for ways to investigate and test hypothetical models of reading. More research has been carried out on first language (L1) reading models than on FL or L2 reading models (Hudson, 2007). These models of reading attempt to describe how reading works, based on different philosophies.

Reading comprehension, in the past, was believed to follow either the

interpretations of bottom-up models (see 2.2.5.1), which saw the reading process as a text-driven process where only the text holds the meaning regardless of the reader interpretation, or top-down models (see 2.2.5.2), which viewed the reading process as a reader-driven process with text interpretation residing in the eye of the reader. Recently, however, reading is seen to be an interactive process. In this context, to comprehend a text, there must be interaction and communication between the different processes of reading and between the reader and the text (Horiba &

33 Fukaya, 2015). In a middle stage between bottom-up and top-down models,

interactive approaches are the ideal compromise between the two. Most researchers, currently, have agreed on some versions of an interactive model which present a great deal of interaction between bottom-up and top-down processes. However, Grabe (2009) notes that the term interactive does not have an agreed meaning. Some writers assume that it implies the interaction between the different skills of reading, while others assume that it refers to the reader interacting with the text. Models with interactive nature of reading see that both the bottom-up and top-down models are inadequate and simplistic in explaining the nature of reading. The interactive models propose that reading involves the interaction and application of higher-order mental processes, context, and background knowledge as well as lower-order processes and features of the text itself.

The conceptualisation of literacy has been redirected from the view of reading as an individual, product-oriented process to a socially constructed one (Sweet & Snow, 2002). Thus, according to Horiba and Fukaya (2015, p.170), “Meaning- making processes should be examined in light of interactional, collaborative activities that result in the co-construction of meaning between and among readers and not just as the product of a single reader’s individual process.”

Interaction can be characterised in two ways. It can refer to the reader’s use of both bottom-up (lower-level) and top-down (higher-level) processes,

simultaneously; or it can refer to the interaction between the reader and the text, while activating the readers’ schema and background knowledge (Hudson, 2007). Moreover, since reading is considered a socially constructed process (see 2.2.6), reading comprehension could result from an interaction between two readers, when they jointly construct meaning (Horiba & Fukaya, 2015).

The main assumption of the models with interactive nature is that useful elements from both the bottom-up and the top-down processes can be combined together in an interactive set of processes. Lower-level processes, mainly controlled by the text, represent bottom-up models, while higher-level processes, mainly controlled by the reader, represent top-down models. To grasp the notion of interactive processing, there must be a full and detailed explanation of bottom-up and top-down processing, which are presented in the following sections.

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2.2.5.1. Bottom-up models

Bottom-up models view reading comprehension as a serial order of meaning construction from the smallest units of a text into the text itself. This model assumes that the reader constructs meaning from letters, words, phrases, clauses and sentences by converting the text into phonemic units that represent lexical meaning, and this process happens in a serial and linear manner (Koda, 2005). In general, there is an assumption that information is received in a passive way, that processing is fast and efficient, and that the information that has been gained, processed and stored in memory has little impact on how the processing happens (Rayner and Pollatsek, 1989). In this model, readers recognise letters by a scanner (reader’s visual system), and then the gained information is passed to a decoder, which converts letter into systematic phonemes. After that, these phonemes are recognised as words with the help of the lexicon. The reader proceeds in the same way until all words of a sentence have been recognised and processed. At this point, they proceed to a component called merlin, in which syntactic and semantic rules are processed to add meaning to a sentence (Urquhart & Weir, 1998).

The bottom-up models of reading comprehension mainly focus on automatic processing of text and word identification, in a linear manner. This model

emphasises the reader’s ability to recognise words in isolation by mapping the input directly to the mental lexicon, independently of context. Context and reader’s background knowledge have no room and do not play any role in bottom-up approaches. The reliance on context is viewed as a strategy used by weak readers rather than by skilled readers (Nicholson, 1993). However, the role of context and background knowledge in reading comprehension is undeniable according to any current reading model, and this seems to be a weakness of bottom-up processing.

2.2.5.2. Top-down models

Unlike bottom-up models, top-down models view the reading process as a reader- driven rather than text-driven process. Top-down approaches assume that a reader controls the comprehension process, and approaches a text with concepts that already exist in the reader’s memory, above the textual level, and then operates down to the text itself (Alderson et al., 2015). The expectations of the reader play a crucial role in the processing of a text. The reader brings these expectations to bear on the text, and then samples information from the text to confirm or deny his or

35 her expectations (Urquhart & Weir, 1998). In addition, strong versions of top-down models assume that the reader is not text-bound, in the sense that s/he samples from the text to confirm predictions about the text (Smith, 1994).

Readers use their linguistic knowledge (syntactic and semantic) to reduce their reliance on the print of the text, in contrast to bottom-up models in which the reader completely depends on the print. The reader makes predictions about the meaning of the text, and then samples enough information from the text to confirm or deny the predictions. In this way, readers are active in the processing of the text, while they were passive in the bottom-up models. Also, reading is an active process in which the reader brings to the text not only knowledge of the language, but also experiential and general background knowledge (Hudson, 2007). It is worth mentioning that the reader samples information efficiently by “directing the eye to the most likely places in the text to find relevant information” (Grabe, 2009, p.89), not by reading the text word for word as done in bottom-up models.

Smith (1994) points out that a moderating aspect in the process is the limited quantity of data the visual system can process into the reader’s working memory. In his discussion about the role of long-term memory and short-term memory in the top-down nature of reading, Smith (1994) points out that prediction and context work as facilitators, removing blocks of memory while reading. He also stresses the importance of background knowledge in the meaning construction of a text, and he states that “knowledge of relevant schemes is obviously essential if we are to read any kind of text while comprehension” (1994, p.15). Smith views reading as selective and purposeful in that readers process and attend only what is relevant to their purpose of reading.

It is not obvious what the reader can learn from a text if s/he needs first to have predictions about the text. However, this does not undermine the importance of predictions, background knowledge and context in meaning construction. Few reading researchers adhere to the strong version of the top-down models, as indeed few researchers adhere to the bottom-up models. If we consider these two different sets of models for a moment, we think of bottom-up models as text-driven models (also text models, and lower-level processes), and of top-down processes as reader- driven models (also situation models and higher-level processes). The mediating models between the two opposite bottom-up and top-down models are the interactive models or approaches.

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