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CHAPTER II LITERATURE REVIEW
A. Reading 1. The Definition of Reading
According to Grabe and Stoller, “reading is the ability to draw meaning from printed text and interpret the information. A reader has several
purposes and each purpose has different skills and strategies to understand the text”.
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Reading is an interaction between the reader and the writer. The texts provide messages from the writer, and the reader understands what the writer
wants to give. Reading is also about comprehending process. The readers need to understand what the writer intended to convey in written text
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, they have to be active to construct the meaning of the message, so that there is no
misunderstanding between the writer and the reader. Reading means different purposes for people. Some of them
recognize written words, and for the others it is an opportunity to teach pronunciation and practice speaking.
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Students can learn many skills from reading. They can learn speaking from how to pronounce the word in the
written text, they also can learn grammar from how to analyze the sentence from the text, learn vocabulary from how to know the unfamiliar words, learn
how to write by identifying how to make sentences, and learn to listen from reading aloud.
In the same line, Harmer also stated that reading is useful for other purposes too; any exposure to English is a good thing for language students.
Some of language sticks in their minds as part of the process of language
1
William Grabe and Fredricka L. Stoller, Teaching and Researching Reading, Harlow: Longman, 2002, p. 11.
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William Grabe, Reading in a Second language: Moving from Theory to Practice, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009, p. 15
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Sacha Anthony Berardo, The Use of Authentic Materials in the Teaching of Reading, The Reading Matrix: Vol.6, No.2, September 2006, p. 60.
acquisition, and, if the reading text is interesting and engaging, acquisition is likely to be successful.
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As the experts mentioned about the definition of reading above, it can be concluded that reading is a process delivering messages from the writer
to the reader. The readers read the written text with their eyes and bring it to their brain and interpret them with their background knowledge as
information. Every reader has different purposes in reading. The important of reading is when students read the text, and then they understand what the
writer wants to share with us.
2. Kinds of Reading
Most of reading skills are trained by studying short texts to get detail information. But others require the use of longer texts to complete books.
There are two kinds of reading; intensive and extensive reading.
a Extensive Reading
Extensive reading is often assumed to comprehend the whole book. Sometimes students have to understand the part of sentences, paragraphs,
and chapters. Actually, they do not have to understand the whole book in every single part of it. They just get the general on what they read.
Therefore, students can use some strategies to practice in understanding longer texts, such as scanning and skimming.
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The using of scanning is to get detail information on what they want to know. Then, skimming is the
way students get the general information or main idea in the longer texts. Extensive reading can be a source of enjoyment and a way of
gaining knowledge of the world. Extensive reading is focused on the story not on items to learn.
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So, it can be said that the aim of extensive reading is to read pleasure and get the general idea of the story or texts.
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Jeremy Harmer, How to Teach English, Harlow: Longman, 1998, p. 68.
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Christine Nuttall, Teaching Reading Skills in a Foreign Language, Oxford: Heinemann, 1996, pp. 38-39.
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I. S. P. Nation, Teaching ESLEFL Reading and Writing, New York: Routledge, 2009, pp. 49-50.
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