Interactive Teaching Philosophy

There are currently three main approaches to teaching reading; the bottom-up model, the top-down model and the interactive model. Although both the bottom-up and top-down models have their merits, the interactive model blends the major strategies of them both together to form a more balanced well-rounded approach.

The bottom-up model, which was the sole method of teaching reading through the mid-1980s, places a heavy emphasis on decoding. The belief is that the eye directs the mind, and that reading begins with print and proceeds systematically from letters to words to phrases to sentences to meaning. Since meaning is at the end of the reading process, the reader would need to have their decoding skills down pat in order to comprehend
This model doesn't discount the importance of decoding. The reader uses parallel processing by decoding and comprehending simultaneously. Whereas bottom-up processing may be easier for the reader who is skilled at word recognition but does not know much about the text topic, and top-down processing may be easier for the reader who may be slow at word recognition but has prior knowledge of the text topic, children who engage in interactive processing exhibit fluent reading that comes from both skillful decoding and the ability to relate textual information to their prior knowledge. To properly achieve fluency and accuracy, developing readers must work at perfecting both their bottom-up recognition skills and their top-down comprehension strategies. Fluent and accurate reading can result only from simultaneous interaction between these
Both the reader variables (interest level in the text, purpose for reading the text, knowledge of the topic, awareness of the reading process) and the text variables (text type, structure, syntax, and vocabulary) interact to determine the level of the reader's comprehension of the text. There is also convincing evidence that readers bring internalized models of the reading process to their reading. Research has shown that many readers centered in the bottom-up method equate good reading with sound identification or good pronunciation. They focus their attention on the graphic information in the text and may fail to understand or recall what they have read. Readers centered in the top-down method demonstrate good to excellent recall and comprehension of text, but only decode enough to gain that comprehension. The interactive model strikes a successful balance between bottom-up and top-down processing. This approach requires the teacher to model and directly teach the skills and strategies necessary for the interpretation and comprehension of the