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discussed literal and inferential reading because the texts for SMP students particularly cover literal and inferential reading.
Based on the curriculum of SMP and level of reading comprehension above, the researcher can get some indicators required to the students, they
were literal reading finding word meaning, finding detailed information of the text, identifying the generic structure of the text and inferential reading
identifying referents of the text, identifying main ideas of the text, identifying implied information of the text, and identifying the communicative purpose of
the text.
4. Micro and Macro Skills of Reading
In comprehending a text, there are some micro and macro skills. Brown 1994: 307 defines micro and macro skills of reading as follows:
a. Micro skills cover:
1 Discriminating among the distinctive graphemes and orthographic
patterns of English. 2
Retaining chunks of language of different lengths in short-terms memory.
3 Process writing at an efficient rate of speed to suit the purpose.
4 Recognizing a core of words, and interpret word order patterns and
their significance. 5
Recognizing grammatical word classes, system, patterns, rules and elliptical form.
6 Recognizing that a particular meaning may be expressed in different
grammatical forms. 7
Recognizing cohesive devices in written discourse and their role in signaling the relationship between and among classes.
b. Macro skills cover:
1 Recognizing the rhetorical forms of written discourse and their
significance for interpretation.
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2 Recognizing the communicative functions of written texts, according
to form and purpose. 3
Infering context that is not explicit by using background knowledge. 4
From described events, ideas, etc., infering links and connection between between events, deduce causes and effect, and detect such
relations as main idea, supporting idea, new information, given information, generalization and exemplification.
5 Distinguishing between literal and implied meanings.
6 Detecting culturally specific references and interpret them in a context
of the appropriate cultural schemata. 7
Developing and use battery of reading strategies, such scanning and skimming, detecting discourse markers, guessing the meaning of
words from context and activating schemata for the interpretation of text.
5. Models of Reading
In looking for ways to describe the interaction between reader and text, experts have also created models that describe what happens when people read
Aebersold and Field, 1997: 17. Barnett in Aebersold and Field 1997: 17-18 provides a thorough summary of three main models of how reading occurs. They
are bottom-up model, top-down model and the interactive model. a.
Bottom-up model argues that the reader constructs the text from the smallest units letters to words phrases to sentences, etc and becomes automatic that
readers are not aware of how it operates. It means that a reader has to understand the passage by reading word by word to reach the whole
understanding. b.
Top-down model argues that readers bring a great deal of knowledge, expectation, assumption, and questions to the text and given a basic
understanding of the vocabulary and check when new information appears. The reader had known about the passage so they just want to know if there is any
new information in the passage.
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c. The interactive model argues that both top-down and bottom-up processes are
occurring either alternately or at the same time. It describes a process that uses both bottom-up and top-down depending on the type of the text as well as on
the read ers‟ background knowledge, language proficiency level, and culturally
shaped beliefs about reading. A reader uses both models in their reading activity depending on the situation that they faced.
6. Strategies of Reading Comprehension
