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the reader side, difficulties can be due to lack of background for text topic or insufficient lexical knowledge. There can be difficulties due to reader-text
interactions; for example, when beliefs of readers clash with opinions expressed in texts 1995, p.66.
In Basic Reading I, the students’ problem also mostly came from text characteristics, reader characteristics, and interaction between reader and text.
Thus, the discussion was as follows.
1. Text characteristics
According to Pressley and Afflerbach, on the text side, there are number of ways that text can be poorly written, from problems at the word level to the
overall meaning of the passage 1995, p.66. Based on the questionnaire and interview, the problem in text characteristics was the lack of vocabulary.
Vocabulary played role in the comprehension. Comprehension ability is the ability to understand information in a text and interpret it appropriately. However,
comprehension abilities are much more complex than the definition suggest Grabe Stoller, 2002, p.17. If the reader do not know the meaning of
vocabulary, it may they do not comprehend the text. Moreover, Respondent 4 who was interviewed said her difficulty:
Masalahnya itu aku gak punya banyak kosakata, jadi aku harus mengerjakan latihannya lebih lama; jika aku gak ngerti artinya, sama saja aku gak ngerti
teksnya tentang apa the difficulties are that I do not have a lot of vocabulary, so I
have to take much time for doing the exercise; I do not know the word meaning, so I do not understand what the text about interview on December 8
th
, 2011.
Tozcu and Coady 2004, p. 473 as cited in Constantinecu, 2007 pointed out that learning vocabulary is an important aspect of L2FL acquisition and
academic achievement. It is vital to reading comprehension and proficiency, to
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which it is closely linked. In a reading, Grabe 1991, as cited in Constantinecu, 2007 argued that fluent L2FL readers need to know about 2,000 to 7,000 words
and sometimes even more if they want to reach native-like fluency. Generally, L2FL readers need to recognize approximately 95 per cent of the words in a
given text in order to comprehend its meaning and they need to know the different meanings of words according to context, as well as words grammatical properties.
In summary, it can be pointed out that reading and vocabulary are inter-related, in other words, good readers have a rich vocabulary, and similarly, a rich vocabulary
is one of the key elements that ensure reading proficiency. However, vocabulary issue was not only for reading. It influenced other
aspects such as students’ level skills, academic performance, and related background knowledge Grabe Stoller, 2002, p.76. Therefore, students needed
to improve vocabulary knowledge. For instance, to improve vocabulary identification skills, it is worth giving special attention to easily prepared rapid
word-recognition exercises. Based on the questionnaire and interview, students have known their
problems in reading. Then, they mentioned their effort to overcome the problems such as adding an extra time to read any reading passages like novels, newspaper,
magazine, and the like. They believed that if they practice reading more, they would enhance their vocabulary knowledge.
Still, the lecturer also gave the students an exercise type to enhance the vocabulary for example the reader’s log. As aforementioned, reader’s log
involved several exercises that develop particular aspects like vocabulary. In this
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exercise, students were asked to find some words that they considered as the difficult ones. Through the words they found, they had to find the synonym and
made new sentences of each word. Carrel 1988, p.242 as cited in de Debat, n.d mentioned several techniques of introducing new vocabulary, for instance as
synonyms and antonyms; as collocations and idioms; and through rules of word formation as in reader’s log.
2. Reader characteristics
