Gaining general comprehension of a text is the most basic purpose of reading. General reading comprehension is actually more complex than what people
may think which requires more understanding to the whole big ideas instead of understanding one or two specific ideas in the text.
3. The Model of Reading
Reading model is theory that happens during reading and comprehending a text
of what is going on in the reader’s eyes and mind.
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It tries to explain and predict reading behavior and focused on two main models of reading, which are
bottom-up and top-down model. a. A bottom-up model, based on Dr. Zaidah, suggests that reading begins with a
reader processing the visual information showed on a written text.
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While Grabe and Stoller stated that:
Bottom-up models suggest that all reading follows a mechanical pattern in which the reader creates a piece-by-piece mental translation
of the information in the text, with little interference from the reader’s own background knowledge. In the extreme view, the reader
processes each word letter-by letter, each sentence word-by-word and each text sentence-by-sentence in a strictly linear fashion.
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b. A top-down model represents reading as a process of four cycles —optical,
perception, syntactic, and meaning construction cycles. A reader moves from one sequence of a cycle to another and start making hypotheses about the
conceptual meaning of the text, in other words, the reader constantly tries to predict the meaning of the text.
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Top down models assume that reading is primarily directed by the reader goals and expectations, said Grabe and
Stoller. They then added: Top-down models characterise the reader as someone who has a set
of expectations about text information and samples enough information
13
F. Davies, Introducing Reading, London: Penguin, 1995, p. 59.
14
Zaidah bt. Zainal, Critical Review of Reading Models and Theories in First and Second Languages, Jurnal Kemanusiaan, 2003, p. 105.
15
William Grabe and Fredricka L. Stoller, Teaching and Researching Reading-Second Edition, in Christopher N. Candlin and David R. Hall ed, Applied Linguistics in Action Series,
New York: Routledge, 2013, p. 25.
16
Zainal, op. cit., p. 108.
from the text to confirm or reject these expectations. To accomplish this sampling efficiently, the reader directs the eyes to the most likely
places in the text to find useful information.
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4. The Kind of Reading
Reading can be divided into two kinds which are intensive and extensive reading. Here are the explanations:
a. Intensive Reading Intensive reading, according to Harmer, refers to the detailed focus on the
construction of reading texts that usually takes place in classroom and accompanied by study activities where the teachers encourage the students to
reflect on different reading skills and may ask them to work out what kind of text they are reading, look at particular uses of grammar and vocabulary,
tease out detail of meaning, and then use the information in the text to move on to other learning activities.
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b. Extensive Reading Extensive reading refers to reading which students usually do outside the
classroom, for example reading novels, web pages, newspapers, magazines, etc which involve reading for pleasure or joyful reading.
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The goal of extensive reading is to improve reading skills by processing a quantity of
materials that can be comprehended and pleasurable where the teacher’s job is to guide the reader to comprehensible materials and to let the students
make their own choices of what they want to read.
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17
Grabe and Stoller, op. cit., pp. 25 —26.
18
Jeremy Harmer, How to Teach English, Malaysia: Pearson, 2007, pp. 99 —100.
19
Ibid., p. 99.
20
Jerry Greer Gebhard, Teaching English as a Foreign or Second Language —a Self
Development and Methodology Guide, US: University of Michigan Press, 1996, p. 208.
