Reading Comprehension

Most linguist has made definition of reading based on their points of view. The some of them are presented as follow:
       Brenda argues that reading is communication process between the writer and the  reader, utilizing written language.[1]
       Hornby concludes that reading is the way in which something is interpreted or understood, so by reading we can understand what the writer intends in her or his book.[2]
       According to oxford advance learners dictionary of current English states some definition of reading, they are:
a)      The action of person who reads.
b)      An mount indicates or registered by a measuring instrument.
c)      A way in which something is  interpreted words through the eyes and mind.
d)     An entertaiment at which is read to an audience.
e)      Each of the stage of debate through which a bill passed before it can become law.[3]

       Reading is the meaningful interpretation of printed or written verbal symbol. Reading (comprehension) is a result of the interaction between the perception of graphic symbol that represent language and the readers language skills and knowledge of the world.[4]
       Three basic definitions of reading have driven literacy programs in the United States. According to the first definition, learning to read means learning to identify words and get their meaning. According to the third definition, learning to read means learning to bring meaning to a text in order to get meaning from it.[5]
       Futher, Gates in Thompson and Rubin define that reading is a complex process between the writer and the reader which point and monitor comprehension to estalish the meaning.[6]
       Based on some the explanation above the researcher concluded that the reading is the way in which something is interpreted or understood and reading is activity in which the reader try to understood the writer’s idea presented.

1)   Definition of Reading Comprehension
       While comprehension is the mind’s power of understanding what has been read Kustwryo. Reading comprehension understand of what has been read. It is an active thinking process that depens not only on comprehension skill but olso the students experience and prior knowledge.[7]
       According to Webster’s dictionary, comprehension is “the capacity for understanding fully; the act or action of grasping with the intellect.” Webster also tells us that reading is “to receive or take in the sense of (as letters or symbols) by scanning; to undrstand the meaning of written or printed matter; to learn from what one has seen or found in writing or printing of accurate word recognition. [8]

       Wilso and Hall also describe comprehension as involving three levels of thinking. They labeled these as: 1) literal understanding, 2) interpretation, 3) problem solving.
       Good in Ciawati describes that reading comprehension  as the act of understanding the meaning of printed language[9]. It must be achieved because understanding is the main aspect in reading comprehension. Successful reading comprehension involves he reader to cover the meaning needed to achieve the particular piece purpose system. It may be finding a particular piece of information, solving a problem through reading, or working to understand an idea from the printed language.
       Anderson and  pearson in Burns  stated that reading comprehension depends on many factors namely:
a)      The readers’ ability to attend to printed ideas.
b)      The readers’ backround knowledge to which new information
c)      The quality of the writing itself
d)     The readers’ purpose in reading the materials[10]
       Based on the theoretical describtions above, the writer concludes that reading comprehension is an ability or capacity for comprehending and understanding reading materials to get information from them.

a)    Kinds of Reading Comprehension
       Richard states that different types of reading comprehension are distinguished according to the readers purposes and the types of reading that they use.
The following are commonly referred to:
1)      Literal comprehension : Reading in order to understand, remember, or recall the information explicit contained in a passage. The literal comprehension is the most fundamental in reading comprehension kinds because the readers must first understand what the author express before drawing an inference, making an evaluation, or gaining an appreciation.
2)      Inferential Comrehension: Reading in order to find information which is not explicitly stated in the passage. To make a complete inference, the readers must read the passage carefully, put ideas and facts together to draw a concluasion, then inference it by using their experience and intuition.
3)      Critical or evaluative comprehension : Reading in order to compare information in a passage with the reader own knowledge and values. It requires them to be active in criticizing and evaluating whether or not the information expressed by the author is worth enough to be absorbed.
4)      Appreciative comprehension : Reading in order to gai emotional or other kinds of valued responses from a passage.[11]

b)   Reading Comprehension Skill
       Anderson describes “there are six of reading comprehension”. Namely:
1)  Listening to, speaking, reading and writing about subject matter information.
2)  Selecting, connecting, and explaining information.
3)  Analyzing, synthesizing, and inferring from information.
4)  Hypothesizing and predicting.
5)  Formulating and asking questions.
6)  Understanding and producing technical vocabulary and text features according to content areas. [12]
       An additional area for consideration related to reading comprehension skills is the relationship between intensive reading and extensive readings. Intensive reading can be defined as using a text for maximal development of comprehension skills. All activities are designed explicitly to teach reader the comprehension skills neccessary for them to transfer the strategies and skills to their own reading when they are not in the classroom.
       Extensive reading can be defined as reading large amount o text for general comprehension. Typically, extensive reading is combined with other activities so that  reading is only a portion of what the learners expected to do. For example, readers may read large amount of text and then prepare a paper comparing and contrasting various view point on the topic.

2)   Kinds of Reading
       In general there are three kinds of reading, they are as the following:
a) Reading aloud
       It is a kind of reading that expressed orally ever word in the text. It aims to improve the students’ ability in pronouncing the word, stressing the word, and having a good intonation about every sentence in the passage.  Through reading aloud, the teacher can evaluate the students’ ability in pronunciation, words stress, and sentence intonation.

b)   Silent reading
       Silent reading means that reading by heart, where there is no voice is expressed. it is frequently practiced by a reader who wants to comprehend the text in reading comprehension process. This type of reading aims to find out the meaning of the passages. Reading silently needs a reader with deep attention to what he is reading. To gain the meaning given in the text, a reader should have a full concentration. In silent reading, a reader tries to find out the main ideas, or ideas that stated explicitly. That’s why, during the teaching process, teacher usually control the class while the students are reading to give some helps if it is necessary or needed. Silent reading is belonging to reading comprehension.

c)    Speed reading
       Speed reading is reading faster to get the ideas in answering some specific questions. Speed reading needs fast eye movement (eye speed) that helps to find out the ideas of the writer quickly. If someone’s eye speed is normal, it will give some help in doing speed reading. In this kind of reading, the teacher usually evaluates the students about how far they are and how quickly they are in finding out some certain ideas regarded to the given questions in a short time. In this case, teacher will know about his students’ competence in reading comprehension langan 339 in Hasnawati.[13] It is closely connected to speed learning.




3)   Components of reading
       The national reading panel released a report that examined the five components of reading they are as follows: [14]
1.    Phonemic awareness is the ability to notice think about and manipulated the individual sound in spoken words.
2.    Phonics is instruction that teaches the relationship between letter and graphemes and phonemes.
3.    Fluency is the ability to read a text accurate, smoothly and rapidly with proper expression. Fluency is patent neglected in the classroom and that guided, repeated oral reading with feedback is effective.
4.    Vocabulary is knowledge of words and is required to communicate effectively and understand a text.
5.    Comprehension is the understanding of what is being read and it is the ultimate goal of reading. The National Reading Panel identified seven strategies to enhance reading comprehension, namely comprehension monitoring, cooperative learning, list of graphic and semantic organizers, question generation, generation answering, story structure, summarizing.

  
4)   Strategy in Reading
       We have already seen the importance of reading but know we read to help the students to develop good reading stratgies. This may seen to be strange. If the students are good readers, what is the problem? The problem is that students read everything in the book from beginning to finish when read, and you want your learners to be able to skim read on chapter in order to identify and learn one or two key issues.
1.    Scanning
       Reader does not read the entire text. They approach the text looking for specific information and utilize cues to direct them t the data of concem example:
1)  Finding a specific advertisement
2)  Reading menus
3)  Reading newspaper headline or table of content
2.    Skimming
       Unlike scanning these involves reading but at a fast speed. Readers tend to rarely on headings titles, pictures, first and last sentences of paragraph, etc. Rather than examining even world, example:
1)   Drawing inferences about the writers attitude to situation or topic.
2)   Comparing to situation or topic.
3)   Findings or comparingevents.
3.    Intensive reading or responsive reading
            Readers make maximum use of the text and are above to make judgment about the text example:
1)   Reading for the purpose of making a summary
2)   Reading to be able to take sides
3)   Differentiating fact from opinion.
4.    Extensive reading or research reading
       Extensive reading is usually done when long reading passages or  books. Reader do not examine every detail of the printed page. They neither skim nor scan. However they are able to summarizes the writer’s ideas but have not yet made a critical evaluation of ideas presented in the text. Example:
1)   Reading for the sake of keeping records
2)   Reading for the purpose of making a summary
       Other strategies that can help students read more quicly and effectively that given by Herlin Sukandani namely:
       Previewing is reviewing titles, section headings and photo captions to get a sense of the structure and content of a reading selection.[15]

5)   Factors Affecting Reading
            Anderson describes the factors affecting reading comprehension in his opinion does not reside on the  text it self. Meaning is reached when the reader integrates personal background knowledge, purpose for reading, reading strategies, and the text to get meaning.[16]
The description aboveimplies that to get a perfect comprehension in the reading process, there are some factors either internal or xternal factors into five categories, namely:
1)    Background experience
       It refers to the previous experince that the readrs have already known before and it relates to the reading materials that they read.
2)   Language ability
       It refers to read’s ability in ability in mastering some elements of language, for example: vocabulary, transition words, grammar, etc.
3)   Thinking ability
       It refers to the reader’s abiity to analyze the reading material that they read by considering some comprehension aids to support their achievement in comprhension.
4)   Affection
       It refers to some psychologicalfactors that can affect the reader’s comprehension. The readers have interest, motivation, attitudes, beliefs, and feeling.
5)   Reading purpose
It refers to the reader’s purpose why they read the reading materials. It is usually done by making some questions by reading process.[17]


6)   Technique of Improving Comprehension
       According to Martin reading comprehension requires motivation, mental frameworks for holding ideas, concentration and good study techniques.
       There are some suggestions
a)    Develop a broad background
Broad your backround knowledge by reading newspapers, magazines, and books, become interested in words events.
b)   Know the structure of paragraph
Good writers construct paragraph that have a beginning, middle, and end. Often, the first sentence will give an overview that helps provide a framework for adding details. Also, look for transitional words. Phases or paragraphs that change the topic.
c)    Identify the type of reasoning
Does the authoruse cause and effect reasoning, hypothesis, model building, induction or deducation, systems thinking?
d)   Really smart readers try to anticipate the author and predict future ideas and questions. If you’re right, this reinforces your understanding. If you’re wrong, you make adjustments quicker.
e)    Look for the method of organization
Is the material organized chronologically, serially, logically, functionally, spatially or hierarchical?


f)    Create motivation and interest
Previewmaterial, ask questions,. And discuss ideas with classmates, the stronger your interest, the greater your comprehension.
g)   Pay attention to supporting cues.
Study pictures, graphs and headings. Read the first and last paragraph in a chapter, or the first sentences in each section.
h)   Highlight, summarize and review
Just reading a book is not enough, to develop a deeper understanding, you have to highlight, summarize and review important ideas.
i) Building  a good vocabulary
For most educated people, this is a left time project. The best way to improve you vocabulary is to use a dictionary regulary. You may carry around pocket dictionary and use if to look up new words, or you can keep a list of word to look up at the end of the day. Concentrate on roots, prefixes and endings.
j)  Monitor effectiveness
Good reders monitor their attention, concentration, and effectiveness. They quickly recognize if they’ve missed an idea and back up to read it.[18]




[1]Alexander, J. E, ET all, Teacing Reading, General Editor. Little, Brown and Company Buston Toronto, 1979, p.107

[2]Hornby, A.S. Oxford Advanced Learners of Current English. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1974) p. 699

[3] Ibid. p. 958.

[4]Harris, A.J. 7& Sipay, E.R. How to Increase Reading Ability, New york: longman Inc. 1975, p. 8

[5]Foertsch. Definition of Reading. http://www.ncrel.org/1998 . Journal Online. Accessed on sunday, 2013-02-17

[6]Alexander J.E,  Op.Cit  p. 80

[7] Harris A.J. 7& Sipay E.R, Op.Cit.p. 9

[8]  Hay & Roberts in CUESTA College. Reading Comprehension. http://Academic.Cuesta.Edu/Acasupp/As/301.  Journal online. 2003. Accessed on Saturday, 2013-02-23

[9] Sribilah et. All. Technique in The Teaching of Reading Skill. Lembaga Bahasa LIA-TTTE. 2000. P. 172

[10] Harris A.J. 7& Sipey E,R. Op.Cit.,  p. 160
[11] Brown Douglas H, Teaching By Priciples an Interactive Approach To Language Pedagogy. State University p. 55
[12] Ibid,. p. 56
[13] Langan in Hasnawati, The Difficulties Encountered by The Second Year Students of  SLTP Negeri 2 Takalar in Reading Comprehension. (Unpublished Skripsi State University of  Makassar, 2000) p. 13
[14]Baker, T. English Teaching Forum, the National Reading Panel. (Washington. Volume 46, number 1, 2008) p. 24
[15] Herlin Sukandani, The Interest of Students in Reading at SMK DDI Parepare Through Illustrated English Book Story. (Skripsi PBI STAIN Parepare. 2008) p. 15
[16] Alexander, J.E. Op.cit. p. 65
[17] Ibid., p. 66
[18] Sukirah Kustaryo. Reading Technique for College Students. (Jakarta: P2L PTK, 1990).  p. 85