5 Synthesis and evaluation skillsstrategies – the ability to read and compare
information from multiple sources, to think critically about what one reads, and to decide what information is relevant or useful for one’s purpose.
6 Metacognitive knowledge and skills monitoring – an awareness of one’s
mental processes and the ability to reflect on what one is doing and the strategies one is employing while reading.
From the definition above, it can be concluded that reading is basically comprehending a written text, to comprehend means to get or to understand
information from the text. The reader uses their previous knowledge of language and non-language to relate the information from the text in the process of reading.
2. Reading Comprehension
Many experts discuss reading comprehension. According to Koda 2005: 4 in Grabe 2009 comprehension comes when the readers are able to extract the
information they get from the text and combine with what they have already known. Moreover, Sadoski 2007:67 states that reading comprehension is the process
in getting meaning of the texts. It is an active progress in which readers try to understand
the meaning of the texts without any effort to understand the texts’ meaning, the text will remain meaningless. The meaning of the text is not something
which is instantly offered. It requires the texts and the readers to do reading comprehension process. Snow 2002:11 defines reading comprehension as the
process of simultaneously extracting and constructing meaning through interaction
and involvement with written language. As the discussion about the definition of reading itself, readers extract information of the printed text to construct the meaning
of the text. Having a different perspective, Johnson 2008:110 states reading
comprehension as the use of strategies in reading in regaining information and constructing meaning of text done by the reader. Each reader may have their own
strategy in reading. By comprehending the concept of reading, readers are able to improve their own strategies to increase their reading skill. It will automatically help
them to reach their goals in understanding the reading text. Nuttall 1996 points out that if the writer and the reader share the same
experiences and knowledge about the world, the comprehension will be easier to be achieved, in contrast, if there is a mismatch between those of the writer and the
reader, the comprehension will face problems. As an example, if a writer wrote a medical book, he should assume that the reader will have the same background
knowledge as him because if his book is read by people who have no experience about medical terms, it will be difficult for them to comprehend the book.
Based on the above discussion, it can be concluded that reading comprehension is a process in which a reader is spontaneously able to get information from a text
and relate the information to his own background knowledge to construct meaning as the writer intends to extend.
3. Teaching Reading Skill
