Assessing Reading Comprehension Theoretical Review
educational institutions, the localschool potentials, the localschool characteristics, the socio-
cultural conditions of the area, and the learners’ characteristics. The objective of teaching English in junior high schools aims at making the
students are able to communicate in English both spoken and written forms. Teaching junior high school students is not a simple and easy work. The students of junior high
schools are including to the young adults or teenagers Brown, 2001: 92. Izzaty 2008: 123 identifies the students of junior high schools as the adolescence.
Adolescence comes from the Latin word “asolecere” which means grows. In this age, the learners’ interests of readings are on the hill. Piaget in Izzaty, et al. 2008: 35
states that the adolescence learner is in the stage called formal operational where they begin to develop their ability in being a natural conceptual learner and hypothetical
thinker. They begin to have a critical and logic thinking. They begin to employ symbols in learning. Because of these special characteristics, we should pay much
attention in choosing the appropriate program and techniques. Marsh in Izzaty, et al. 2008 suggests the teacher to employ appropriate strategies in handling learners at
this stage as mentioned below. 1
Using the concrete and contextual materials. 2
Employing some visual media and techniques. 3
Providing understandable models. 4
Providing the brief and well organized instructions. 5
Providing the real tasks and activities in learning. Referring to the School-Based Curriculum, the area of reading in junior high
schools includes the ability of understanding written texts to reach the functional level of literacy and the ability to understand many kinds of short functional written
texts and the short essays. Below are the standard of competence and the basic competences of reading for the eighth grade students.
Table 1: The Standard of Competence and the Basic Competences of Reading of Grade VIII of SMP N 6 Yogyakarta
Standard of Competence Basic Competences
Reading 11. Comprehending the meanings of
the functional written texts and the short essays in the form of
recount and narrative texts to interact with the environment.
11.1 Reading aloud the functional texts and the short essays in the form
of narrative and recount text through
the acceptable
pronunciations, stresses,
and intonations
related to
the environment.
11.2 Responding to the meaning of the short functional written texts
accurately, fluently,
and acceptably
related to
the environment.
11.3 Responding to the meaning and the rhetoric steps found in the
short essays in the form of recount
and narrative
texts accurately,
fluently, and
acceptably related
to the
environment.
Teaching reading in junior high school is done by using various kinds of reading materials. The teachers select the materials which are appropriate to the students’
level. In relation to the School-Based Curriculum, there are two kinds of texts that must be learned by the students in second semester. Those are short functional texts
and short essays. The short functional texts are short English texts which exist in real
life for example announcements, invitations, greeting cards, shopping lists, notices, etc. Meanwhile, the short essays include the narrative and the recount texts. As stated
in the basic competences and the standard competence of junior high school students, those kinds of texts are taught in order that students enrich functional literacy level,
that is level of proficiency in which students can communicate using both written and oral language to get things done.