The Use of Top-down Reading Strategy to Improve Reading Comprehension
By Dely Ramdani
Although, Bottom-up is still used by the teachers for teaching and learning, Top-down reading strategy is assumed more effecient to improve reading strategy rather than bottom-up because it argues that readers bring prior knowledge and experience to the text and that they continue to read as long as the text confirms their expectations, while Bottom-up model suggests that a reader reads the words, and sentences and looks at the organization of the text [without relating it to experience or prior knowledge] in order to construct meaning from what was written in the text-meaning depends both on knowledge of vocabulary and syntax. Therefore, it can reduce the frustation of the students bacause of the seaching of dictionary and syntax. There are at least two advantages why most of the teachers prefer using the top-down to bottom-up reading strategy: easy to use and encourage the students to read to learn.
In teaching reading, there are at least three models in teaching reading: Bottom-up, Top-down, and interactive model. Bottom-up model suggests that a reader reads the words, and sentences and looks at the organization of the text [without relating it to experience or prior knowledge] in order to construct meaning from what was written in the text-meaning depends both on knowledge of vocabulary and syntax. Top-down model argues that readers bring prior knowledge and experience to the text and that they continue to read as long as the text confirms their expectations. Interactive model argues that both top-down and bottom-up process occur when a person read a text. Top-down model is one strategy of English teaching and learning is assumed to solve obstacles in reading comprehension.
One of the successful teaching readings is the strategy. There are many strategies like the writer uttered above which one is Top-down. Top-down strategy is the first phase of reading is begun by predicting through readers prior knowledge and experience to the text and they continue to read as long as they know the text is about. As stated by Farell [2002:2], Top-down strategy that Top-down argues that readers bring prior knowledge and experiences to the text and they continue to read as long as the text confirms their expectation. Interaction between the reader and text are dominated by the eyes and brain. Eyes are for looking at the text and brain is for thinking what the text tells about. As the readers think about the information given in the text, they try to use their schemata knowledge to predict the text about. It means the readers knowledge is important to get the understanding. This knowledge, coupled with the ability to make linguistic prediction, determines the expectation the readers will develop as he reads. It is also stated by Coady [1979:7], background knowledge becomes an important variable when we notice, as many have, that students with a Western background of some kind learn English faster, on the average, than those without such a background. The same statement is also conveyed by Clark and Silberstein [1977:1336], skill in reading depends on the efficient interaction between knowledge and knowledge of the world. The same definition is also stated by Anthony, Pearson, and Raphael [1993:284], Reading is the process of constructing meaning through the dynamic interaction among the readers existing knowledge, the information suggested by the written language and the context of the reading situation.
That statement above tries to tell us that reading is interaction between the reader and text written in English. The text exists of knowledge and information needed by the readers. After reading a text, the writer expects the readers get much knowledge and information. Therefore, students who have a good prior knowladge, will be able to know the text about with glance reading. For the teachers, they just give the students some prior knowladge before reading it in order that they will be easy to catch what the reading text is about.
Top-down process can be explained: 1] the reader looks at a passage or a text, [2] he/she guesses about or predicts what the text will be about, [3] Continue to read the text seeking confirmation about the topic. The same argument is also uttered by Mamur [2006:12],
Top-down adalah pemahaman terhadap teks bacaan melalui
kegiatan berfikir dan menangkap makna dimulai dari dugaan
atau prediksi terhadap makna menuju ke unit bahasa terkecil
sebagaimana digambarka dalam urutan berikut:
[1] mata melihat ke teks bacaan, [2] memikirkan dan memprediksi
makna, [3] sampel kalimat sebagai suatu keseluruhan untuk mengecek
makna, [4] untuk mengecek lebih lanjut, melihat kata-kata,
[5] apabila masih tidak pasti paham huruf-huruf, [6] kembali pada
prediksi makna sebelumnya.
From those argumentations above, we can conclude that Top-down strategy is characterized by predicting through readers prior knowledge and experience to the text and they continue to read as long as the text confirms their expectation.
In conclusion, it is also assumed that by conducting top-down reading strategy, the students will encourage the students to learn to read. Besides, by following the procedure of top-down reading strategy, the teachers feel easy to teach the top-down reading strategy than teach reading through bottom- up.