Sentence Comprehension Reading Comprehension Achievement

Winch 1996:9 affirm that if we know the individual words meaning and how they are put together in our language, we know what the sentence means. It can be said that when the readers know the meaning of every single word, it will be easier for them to understand the sentence meaning. Thus, by comprehending the word meaning the readers can easily know the sentence meaning. In addition, the students will get difficulty in getting the idea of the sentence if they do not know the meaning of every single word in the sentence. In solving this problem, the students should identify the difficult word before they try to read the sentence. Wood 1991:57-58 clarifies that identifying key vocabulary words and terms just before you read, as part of the prereading process, and taking steps to learn them later as you read can improve comprehension dramatically. Further, Wood 1991:58 confirms that an early understanding of the most important words is to the comprehension of any book that students read. It can be said that the students will construct the sentence meaning quickly and easily of what they read if they try to identify the difficult word first before starting reading. From the explanation above, it can be concluded that comprehending word meaning is important for the students and it can be the key for successful reading compression although it will be very hard to comprehend the text meaning without understanding the word meaning. For example; “Finally, a generous woman helped him” Taken from: http:www.englishindo.com201308narrative-text.html The example question of word comprehension is “what does the same meaning of the underlined word?” and the answer is “Kind”.

2.1.2 Sentence Comprehension

A sentence is a group of words that expresses a complete idea Wood, 1991:151. It can be said that a sentence has an essential role in comprehending the text. The students need to comprehend sentence if they want to comprehend the passage or the text. Further, Wood 1991:151 also divides sentences into three types, namely: 1 A simple sentence expresses one complete thought and contains one subject and one predicate. Example: My mother sweeps the floor S V Complement 2 A compound sentences is any sentence contains two or more subjects and predicates since they are made up of two or more simple sentences. Example: The girl is smart besides she is diligent and intelligence S To be Adj Connector S To be Adjective 3 A complex sentences contain a simple sentence and several phrases. The phrases may also contain subject and predicates. However, the phrases do not express complete thoughts. Example: I am studying because I will have test tomorrow S To be V-ing Connector S Modal V Complement Adv The basic forms of English sentence are subjects and verbs. Langan 2004:90 states that every sentence has a subject and a verb. Who or what the sentence speaks about is called the subject; what the sentence says about is called the verb. It can be said that identifying them in the sentence is important in order to comprehend the sentence. In line with Langan, Grellet 1996:15 points out that inability to get an immediate grasp of sentence structures often causes discouragement and apprehension for students in facing a new text. Therefore, the sentence structure is needed to be understood by the students before they try to read the text. They have to know that sentence is at least formed by a subject and a verb.

2.1.3 Paragraph Comprehension