also are determine d by the students’ need in reading. Rivers and Temperly in
Nunan, suggest that there are seven main purposes for reading.
16
The first is because the readers are curious about the topic in the text. The second is to know
the instructions how to do some tasks and follow some instructions which related to the daily life. The next is reading purposes can also related the game, e.g., to
read the instruction how to play a game. Then, reading also can be done to read the business letter to communicate with the colleague. Next, reading also can be
used to know time and place about something will take place or what is available. Furthermore, another reading purpose is to fix up the information, such as, to
know something is happening or something happened. The last is reading can be done for enjoyment or excitement. From those explanations, it can be concluded
that purposes of reading depends on the need of the reader.
4. General Understanding of Reading Comprehension
Reading is an activity in order to get information and undestand the writing text. Grabe said that reading is comprehending process. The reader reads to know
what the author’s intention is and why heshe writes.
17
Greer in Carbo argued that comprehension is a purpose of reading.
18
It can be inferred that when the students read but they do not understand, it means they have not read. In another
definition, Klingner, et al., see reading comprehension as a complex process to get meaning from the author including word meaning, word knowledge, and
fluency.
19
It refers to the ability in interpreting the words, understanding the meaning and the relationships between ideas conveyed in a text. He also added
reading comprehension is not only the reader respons to the author’s meaning but multicomplex process to involve many interactions between the reader and what
16
David Nunan, Second Language Teaching and Learning, Boston: Heinle Heinle Publishers, 1999, p. 251.
17
Grabe, op. cit., p. 14.
18
Marie Carbo, Becoming a Great Teacher of Reading, United States of America: Sage Publications Company, 2004, p. 34.
19
Jannete K. Kligner, et al., Teaching Reading Comprehension to Students with Learning Difficulties, New York: The Guilfford, 2007, p. 2.
they comprehend from the text.
20
Lewin viewed reading comprehension as very complex activity.
21
It is not only to understand the text or reading passage but also to interpret, to problem-solve, to visualize, to hypothesize, to observe, to
report, to organize data, to follow directions, to draw conclusion, and to predict outcomes based on the text. From definition about we could know that
comprehension is multi-process that using high-order thinking to add the knowledge together which has got to be the reader’s own comprehension.
Futhermore, according to Namara, generally comprehension is an interaction between readers’ previous knowledge and their knowledge after reading the text.
Comprehension includes recognizing and understanding a main idea and related to the detail.
22
Furthermore, there are several comprehension factors that influence students reading comprehension, those are:
a. Background knowledge b. Vocabulary mastery
c. Fluency d. Comprehension strategies
e. Commprehension skills f. Motivation
g. Genres h. Text Structures
i. Text Features.
23
Those dimensions of reading which had been mentioned above are factors that in
fluence reader’s comprehension. From those concepts above, it can be known that reading comprehension is a multi process since in the reading comprehension
the reader is not only read the text but the reader must make an organized way between the knowledge which they just know and they have already known.
20
Ibid., p. 8.
21
Larry Lewin, Paving the Way in Reading and Writing, San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Wiley Imprint, 2003, p. 2.
22
Daniel Mc. Namara, Reading Comprehension Strategies, New York: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 2010, p. 28.
23
Reading Comprehension Factors, an Imprint of Pearson Education Inc., 2010.
5. Strategies in Reading Comprehension
There are several strategies in reading comprehension that can be used by the students when they are reading the texts. According to Moreillon, reading
comprehension strategies is a medium that can help students to read the text.
24
It means that when the students find difficulty on reading the text, these strategies
could help them to make reading text be easier. Duffy explained three strategies in reading comprehension including pre-reading instruction, during reading
instruction, and post-reading instruction.
25
a. Before reading In this strategy, the students set the purpose before they read the text. By
setting the purpose in the beginning, it will make students be more motivated and comprehend since they know what kind information that must be found. There are
three steps in doing before reading activity, which are: prior knowledge about the purpose of the reading, prior knowledge about the topic, and prior knowledge
about type of text. b. During reading
The second strategy is during reading. If the students found some problems when they are reading, they could use during reading strategy. The following
steps are important during reading. The first is when the students found some words that they do not know, meanwhile they are not allowed to open the
dictionary, they could guess the meaning of the word by looking at the word before and after the unknown word. Then, if the students did not know the
conjunction which is used whether it is to show adding idea e.g., moreover, furthermore, further, to show contrasting idea e.g., on the contrary, on the other
side, meanwhile, or to show giving conclusion e.g., it can be concluded that, all in all, the conclusion is, the students just keep reading and find the another clue in
the next sentence. Last, sometimes the problem is a lost focus for why the material
24
Moreillon, loc. cit.
25
Gerald G. Duffy, Explaining Reading, New York: The Guilford Press, 2009, p. 19.
