In the communicative approach top-down method is used for the reason it has a focus on the meaning. Moreover, it fosters to understand texts with unknown words without concentration on unfamiliar words. Thus, the whole process should evolve around the meaning of the whole text. Penny Ur (Ur, P. (1991): A Course in Language Teaching. Practice and Theory. Cambridge, CUP)  clearly showed main mistakes teachers do when they ‘teach’ reading.

Read the text and answer the questions:

Yesterday I saw a palgish flester gollining begrunt the bruck. He seemed very chanderbil, so I did not jorter him, just deapled with him quistly. Perhaps later he will besand cander, and I will be rangel to him.

1. What was the flester doing, and where?
2. What sort of a flester was he?
3. Why did the writer decide not to jorter him?
4. How did she deaple?
5. What did she hope will happen later? 

We can easily answer the questions having the text in front of our eyes but do we understand what is meant? 

The questions provided in the exercises should help learners understand the meaning, e.g. Did flester feel happy or disappointed? 

NOTE! When checking the understanding of a text you should focus on MEANING, which mostly implies paraphrasing.