The Understanding of Reading

g. Reading for general comprehension From all purposes mentioned by Grabe and Stoller, reading for general comprehension is the most basic one. It is the most complex process. To comprehend the text requires reading skill, reading strategies, and background knowledge of the reader. Thus, Grabe and Stoller classified the purposes for reading into seven points specifically. Every person may has different purpose in reading depends on their needs. Some readers often make their decision to read very quickly or even unconsciously. They also may have more than one purpose in one reading. For instance, when they pick up a newspaper, they may usually read the front page first to search whether there is any information they expect to read. After they find the headline which cues it, they may skim quickly for the length of paragraph and then read some paragraphs for comprehension. However in academic or professional ones, the readers may set their purposes before reading in order to read effectively because they usually need several reading sources. Harmer categorized the reasons of reading into two broad categories. 6 a. Instrumental reason, it means people do reading because they have some specific reason in their mind and it would give some usefulness. For instance, people read a map to know the direction, people read the guideline book of a smart phone to know how to operate it, etc. b. Pleasurable reason, it means people read some reading text in order to get their own pleasure. For instance, people read magazines, novels, or comics because they like to do that, even as a hobby or they want to spend their boring day with reading. Therefore, it can be concluded that there are two reasons in making decision to read some kinds of written text, which are to get some instrumental information or to get some pleasure. In reading for the instrumental reason, the readers usually have specific reason to read something that would give some benefits to them. 6 Jeremy Harmer, The Practice of English Language Teaching 3 rd edition, New York: Longman, 2001, p. 200. However, in reading for pleasure, the readers usually read texts or books they are interested in, like novels, short stories, etc. and enjoy the time doing this activity.

3. The Kinds of Reading

There are two kinds of reading according to Jeremy harmer. 7 a. Extensive Reading Extensive reading refers to a reading activity that students often do outside a classroom. This kind of reading should provide reading for pleasure, because a teacher facilitates students to choose reading materials they want to read, to encourage them to read a lot, and to give some opportunity to share their reading experiences in the classroom. b. Intensive Reading Intensive reading refers to a reading activity that students often do inside a classroom. This kind of reading usually focuses on reading text construction. It means that students are asked to understand about type of text they are reading, find the meaning for every word details, to examine the use of vocabulary and grammar, and then to use the information they get from the text to move to other language skills.

4. The Principles of Reading

Harmer also mentioned some reading principles on his book titled How to Teach English, such as: 8 a. Encourage students to read as often and as much as possible. Students need to be encouraged to read reading texts extensively. By reading a lot, it can help students to improve their reading skill. b. Students need to be engaged with what they are reading. Students need to be engaged with the topic of the text and the activity in the classroom while work out with the text. It means that the teacher should 7 Jeremy Harmer, How to Teach English, Cambridge: Pearson Education Limited, 2007, pp. 99 –100. 8 Ibid., pp. 101 –l02.