M a education paper-v methods of teaching english

 in the construction of meaning. 
Top-down processes start from the reader's general knowledge of the world and the given 
topic. They activate a reader's contextual knowledge which is then used for interpreting the 
information coming in 'bottom up'.
Top-down processes may be triggered by, for example, the title/ topic of a specific text and what 
the reader knows about that already. This pre knowledge creates certain expectations which are 
then matched, in bottom-up processes, against the information which comes in with each new 
sentence and paragraph. Understanding thus is the joint product of an anticipation of meaning 
and its confirmation or refutation by the literal study of the textual document. 
Effective readers try to be critically aware of what they contribute to the construction of 
meaning. When reading an essay they do two things in parallel: They first try to identify its 
topic, that is, which questions the author/s set out to answer, and then critically compare his 
answers to their own understanding of the issue which may be modified by what the author has 
to say on it. With regard to reading for study purposes this often means that it is no use 
complaining that the author does not focus on what the reader is presently interested in or would 
have wished the author to focus on.
It is not a useful reading strategy, for instance, to sit back and let your eyes glide over the lines of 
a book trying to take in everything, hoping that inspiration will come over you if only you read 
the text diligently line by line from beginning to end. It will not! Understanding is not an 
objective commodity that can be taken out of a book like things can be taken out of a box. If we 
do not activate the knowledge we have and bring it productively to bear on an understanding and 
interpretation of a given text, no understanding will be the result. 
Effective readers, therefore, ask before embarking on a lengthy reading process:
Why do I want to read this? 
What do I know about the topic already? 
What do I want to find out?
How does that which the text presents relate to what I knew before?
Competent readers know that viewing people or things from different perspectives gives 
us a different view of them, looking at texts from different perspectives may also change 
our image of them. Our image (understanding) of a specific object changes if we view it 
from a different angle. Readers should keep in mind, too, that texts provide answers to 

---

26 
questions which their authors had, but those questions may not be the same that a specific 
reader has (or would have liked the text to answer).
This does not mean that it is impossible to view a specific topic or object from the 
perspective taken by another person. On the contrary, understanding means trying to view 
things from a different perspective, and that is essential for enlarging and improving our 
knowledge. 
With regard to reading for academic purposes and the use of publications which may not 
directly address the questions that we are interested in, this means that readers should 
critically ask themselves what the aims of their reading is and what aims the author had in 
mind when writing the text. They should critically compare the two and also consider 
what other authors say on a given topic. The ‘golden rule’ therefore is: 
Be an active reader. Use all the knowledge you have and can get access to. 
Keeping that in mind we can now turn to two well-known methods of reading that spell 
out in some detail the skills needed for reading. They are known as the SQ3R method, 
and the MURDER
scheme.
The SQ3R Reading Method: Survey-Question-Read-Recite/Recall-Review 
Survey 
Survey the text before you start reading it, from the first to the last page. 
Consider the title, headings and subheadings of chapters.
What 
do 
they 
tell 
you 
about 
the 
content 
of 
the 
text? 
Read 
introductory 
paragraphs 
and 
summaries 
of 
chapters. 
Look 
for 
pictures, 
maps, 
graphs, 
charts 
illustrating 
meaning. 
Check if the text has a subject index / glossary which may help you find specific 
information.