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2.

Reading
a. Definition
There are some definitions of reading according to expert:
Harmer (1991:190) stated that reading is an exercise dominated by the eyes and the
brain. The eyes receive messages and the brain then has work out the significance of
these messages. In line with this, Oxford Advanced Learners Dictionary of current
English writesstated that Reading is the way in which something is interpreted or
understood.
Meanwhile Whorter (1993: XIV) states that reading is approached as a thinking
process- a process in which students interacts with textual material and sort, evaluates,
and reads to the organizations and content of the material.
Reading is a complex cognitive process of decoding symbols for the purpose of
deriving

meaning

(reading

comprehension)

and/or

constructing

meaning

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reading (process)
b. Kinds of Reading
According to Brown (2001 :3 12) that there are two kinds of reading they are:
l. Oral and silent reading
Occasionally, you will have reason to ask a student to read orally. At the
beginning and intermediate levels, oral reading can:
a. Serve as an evaluative check on bottom-up processing skills,
b. Double as a pronunciation check, and
c. Serve to add some extra student participation if you want to high light a certain
short segment of a reading passage.

For advanced levels, usually only advantage can be gained by reading orally. As
a rule of thumb, you want to use oral reading to serve these three purposes because the
disadvantages of too much oral reading can easily come into play:
a.

Oral reading is not a very authentic language activity.

b.

While one student is reading, others can easily lose attention.

c.

It may have the outward appearance of student participation when in reality it is


mere recitation.

2. Intensive and extensive reading


Silent reading may be subcategorized into intensive and extensive reading.
Intensive reading, analogous Ito intensive listening, is usually a classroom-oriented
activity in which students focus on the linguistic or semantic details of a passage.
Intensive reading calls students' attention to grammatical form, discourse markers, and
other surface structure details for the purpose of understanding literal meaning,
implications, rhetorical relationships, and the like.
As a zoom lens strategy for taking a closer look at text, intensive reading also
may be a totally content-related reading initiated because of subject-matter difficulty. A
complex cognitive concept may be trapped inside the words of a sentence or
paragraph, and a good reader will then very slowly and methodically extract meaning
there from.
Extensive reading is carried out to achieve a general understanding of a usually
somewhat longer text (book, long article, or essays, etc.). Most extensive reading is
performed outside of class time. Pleasure reading is often extensive. Technical,
scientific, and professional reading can, under certain special circumstances, be
extensive when one is simply striving for global or general meaning from longer
passages.

By stimulating reading for enjoyment of reading where all concepts, names,


dates, and other details need not be retained, students gain an appreciation for the
affective and cognitive window of reading an entre into new words. Extensive reading
can sometimes help learners get away from their tendency to overanalyze or look up
words they don't know, and read for understanding.
c. Reading Comprehension
According to Jayashree Pakhare (2007) Reading comprehension offers a tool at
judging the level of passage or text understanding while reading. Effective teaching
strategies offer various modules to enhance this skill combining vocabulary, fluency,
phonics and interpretation skills.
According to smith and Johnson (1980) reading comprehension is the
understanding, evaluating, utilizing of information and gained through and interaction
between reader and author.
Kustaryo in Haris (2000) states that reading comprehension understanding what
has been read. It is an active thinking process that depends not only on comprehension
skills but also on the student's experiences and prior knowledge. Various methods are used
to improve Reading comprehension that include Training the ability to self-assess
comprehension, actively test comprehension using a set of questions, and by improving
met cognition. Theoretical Teaching (teaching conceptual) and a better knowledge of
language can also prove of immense health. Practice plays more pivotal part in
development and honing the skills of reading comprehension. Self-assessment with help of
elaborative interrogation and summarizing helps.
d. Levels of Reading Comprehension

There are three level of comprehension according to Hebers (1978) in Martha


Rapp Ruddel (2005) literal, interpretive and applied labels. Lets use the following
definition of reading comprehension levels:
a. Literal Comprehension
Literal comprehension refers meaning to derived from reading the lines, in
which the reader constructs meaning that accurately reflects the authors intended
message. Literal comprehension is text explicit; that is, answer to literal questions
requires reader understanding of ideas stated directly in text.
b. Interpretive Comprehension
Interpretive comprehension refers to meaning derived by reading between the
lines in which the reader perceives author intent or understands relationship between
text elements that are not stated directly. Interpretive comprehension is text implicit;
answers to interpretive questions require the reader to draw conclusions in response to
unstated cause-effect relationships or comparisons, perception of nuance, and/or
symbolic use of language and ideas.
c. Applied Comprehension
Applied comprehension refers to meaning derived by reading beyond the lines
which the reader understands unstated relationship between information in text schema
implicit (or experience based, if you prefer); answer to questions at this level require
integration of new information into the reader previous fund of knowledge, from which
new relationship emerge.

Harmer, Jeremy.1991. The Practice of English Language Teaching. New Edition London:
Longman.
Whorter , Mc T.kathlsen .1993. Guide to College Reading .Third Edition. New York:
Harpercollin College Publishers.

Brown, H.Douglas. 1980. Principles of Language Learning and Teaching. London: Prentice
Hall International Ltd.
Ruddel, R. P. 2005. Teaching Content Reading and Writing. USA: Wiley Jossey-Bass Education.

1. Concepts of Reading Comprehension


a. Definition of Reading
Reading is an exercise dominated by the eyes and the brain, the received messages in the
brain then has to work out the significance of' these messages. Many students said that they
have read one book, but when they were asked about the main idea of the book, they said
nothing. It is not reading at all, except parroting. Read one book without any comprehension of
this reading cannot be called as reading. In the dictionary of' reading and related terms (1980)
presents some definition of reading as follows:
1) Kustaryo (1988) defines that reading is the interaction various written symbols with
exiting knowledge and comprehension of information and ideas communicated.
2) Gephart (1970) defines reading is an interaction by which meaning encoded in visual
stimuli by an author becomes meaning in the main of the reader.
3) Godman (1968) defines that reading is an interaction between the writer and written
language, through which the reader attempts to reconstruct a massage from the writer.
b. Definition of Comprehension
Pakhare (2007) defines reading comprehension as the level of understanding of a passage
or text. Reading at the rate of 200 to 220 words per minute is considered a normal speed of
reading. For normal reading rates 75% is an acceptable level of comprehension. That means if a
student can understand the meaning of at least 75% of the total text given, it is regarded as
acceptable limits for reading comprehension.
Reading for comprehension is the primary purpose for reading (though this is sometimes
overlooked when students are asked to read overly difficult texts); raising student awareness of
main ideas of a text and exploring the organization of a text are essential for good
comprehension (Richards & Renandya, 2002).
Comprehension is the ultimate goal and hopefully the end result of reading. In fact,
reading without understanding cannot be called reading, because reading, by definition,
involves deriving meaning from the written word. According to Blair-Larsen and Williams

(1999:37) comprehension is a multidimensional thinking process; it is the interaction of the


reader, the text, and the context. Further they state that comprehension occurs when readers
make critical connections between their prior knowledge and new-found knowledge in the text.
While reading a text, readers activate their prior knowledge or schemata about a topic.
c. Definition of Reading Comprehension
Good (2003) describes reading comprehension as the act of understanding the meaning
of printed language. It must be achieved because understanding is the main aspect in reading
comprehension. Successful reading comprehension involves the readers to discover the
meaning needed to achieve the particular purposes set by them. It may be finding a particular
piece of information, solving a problem through reading, or working to understand an idea from
the printed language.
Arsyad and Buhari (1993) describe reading comprehension as an essential factor in a
good reading. They further explain that the perfect comprehension is not the ideal of good
reading because its perfection would be almost synonymous with memorization of the reading
material, and this is seldom essential. For them, the degree of comprehension is measured more
commonly in terms of the understanding the main ideas and basic fact in the reading.
Carnine (1990) describes reading comprehension as a complex set of different skills and
types of knowledge that are active in a nearly simultaneous process.
Richard, et al. (1985) defines reading comprehension as a result of perceiving a written
text in order to understand its content. The process of comprehending the written text can be
done either silently (silent reading) or loudly (oral reading).
Based on some theoretical descriptions above, it can be concluded that reading
comprehension is an ability to comprehend, understand, and grasp in mind order to bring a
deeper understand about what the reading comprehension is.
d. The Levels of Comprehension
Alderson (1969) divided comprehension into three levels:
The three levels of comprehension, or sophistication of thinking, are presented in the
following hierarchy from the least to the most sophisticated level of reading.

1) The Literal Level


The literal level focuses on reading the passages, hearing the words or viewing the
images. It involves identifying the important and essential information. With guidance,
students can distinguish between the important and less important ideas.
2) The Interpretive Level
At the interpretive level, the focus shifts to reading between the lines, looking at what
is implied by the material under study. It requires students to combine pieces of information
in order to make inferences about the author's intent and message. Guiding students to
recognize these perceived relationships promotes understanding and decreases the risk of
being overwhelmed by the complexities of the text being viewed, heard or read.
3) The Applied Level
Understandings at the literal and interpretive levels are combined, reorganized and
restructured at the applied level to express opinions, draw new insights and develop fresh
ideas. Guiding students through the applied level shows them how to synthesize
information, to read between the lines and to develop a deeper understanding of the
concepts, principles and implications presented in the text.

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