Sounding out each individual word is often a painstakingly slow process for students and teachers, likely to lead to frustration or loss of interest as new readers are struggling to pronounce all words. Top-down reading processes encourage new readers to enjoy stories and literature as a whole. As students focus on learning the main points or messages of a book, they will begin to make connections between words or concepts they already know and ones they have not yet learned.
Readers rely on their background knowledge and context clues to process new words and concepts. Students might consider words they already know and compare them to similar words they encounter during reading. A top-down approach to teaching reading allows students to learn to read as easily as they learned to talk. Just as children learn to talk by processing background information they have observed over time, students will learn to read by applying information they previously learned. For example, a child might have memorized a favorite nursery rhyme that was read to him many times throughout his toddler years. When he later learns to read, he might hear the same nursery rhyme being read from a book. Using his background knowledge, he might begin to decode the words in print by matching up words he already knows with what he sees on the page.
According to a 2010 publication on the KBYU Eleven website, a Public Broadcasting Service of Brigham Young University, young children are more likely to learn a new concept when they hear it often and in different contexts. All new readers benefit from repetition and encouragement when attempting to read new or more difficult pieces of literature. Students might read through a passage multiple times and begin to memorize it. Teachers do not stop students to correct pronunciation mistakes or fluency errors during read-aloud exercises but instead rely on repetition to help students learn to self-correct mistakes. Struggling students are encouraged to repeat reading selections often.
Teachers will often encourage students to make their own reading selections, instead of assigning one book or story to the entire class. Because they are likely to be more interested in a book they chose than one that was assigned to them, students are more likely to be motivated to read new and more difficult words. The National Capital Language Research Center recommends giving students opportunities to explore many different kinds of reading material so they are exposed to a wide variety of writing techniques and vocabulary.