our ability to understand words, sentences and text.
4
It can be seen that reading is exercise which is involve two main components, those are word reading the
ability to read through eyes as a tool and language comprehesion the abiity to understand through brain as a tool.
From those expert above, It can be concluded that reading is an activity in getting meaning or message from the writer to the reader. In doing reading
activity our eyes and brain are work systematically to receive the massages then understanding it. Furthermore, reading consists of two main components those are
word decoding and language comprehension.
2. Reading Comprehension
Talking about reading it cannot be separeted from reading comprehension. When reading something people need the ability to comprehending the message
which the writer states in text. However, comprehending what people read is more than just recognizing and understanding the word. True comprehension means
making sense of what you read and connecting ideas in the text to what you already know. It also means remembering what you have read. In other word,
comprehending means thinking while you read.
5
Furthermore, Farris states that reading comprehension is the process of understanding the message that the author is trying to convey. Very simply, it is
making meaning from the written text at hand.
6
Understanding a written text means extracting the required information from it as efficiently as possible.
7
It can be seen that reading comprehesion is a ability in understanding the message of the
text that the writer want to convey. It is not only understanding the meaning but also synthesize it with reader perior knowladge.
4
Jane Oakhil et al, Understanding Teaching Reading Comprehension A Handbook, New York: Routladge,2015 p.2
5
Beatrice S. Mikulecky and Linda Jeffries, Advanced Reading Power: Extensive Reading, Vocabulary Building, Comprehension Skills, Reading Faster, New York: Longman, 2007, p.74
6
Pamella J. Farris, Teaching Reading a Balanced Approach For Today’s Classrooms, New
York: McGraw-Hill Companies, 2004 p. 321
7
Francoise Grellet, Developing Reading Skills A practical guide to reading comprehension exercise, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981 p. 3
3. Purpose of Reading
People have a reason why they read something. If someone find a pearson who read a novel then they ask their reason why they read novel then finding
another one who read a novel and asking the same thing, the answer of each of them probably different. It will find the variety of reasons for reading. Whatever
the reasons of people for reading, they read because they need to have something from the text. It is called message: it might have been facts, but could just as well
have been enjoyment, ideas, feelings. Whatever the reasons, readers probably needed to have the message that the writer intended.
8
Furthermore, according to Grellet there are only two mains reason for reading. First is reading for pleasure and the second one is reading for getting
information.
9
Similar with Grallet, Harmer states that very often that people read something because it interests them or at least it will interest them. Sometimes,
however, it is not the fact that a text might be interesting which couses some one to read it, it is rather the usefulness of the text which promps this action.
10
It can be concluded that someone reads because of two main reasons which are for
pleasure and getting information.
4. Types of Reading
Nutall describes reading into two approaches, those are intensive reading and extensive reading:
11
a. Intensive Reading Intensive reading is reading shorter text, to extract specific information. This
is more accurate activity involving reading for detail.
12
Intensive reading involves approaching the text under the guidance of a teacher or a task which forces
student to focus on text. The aim is to arrive at an understanding, not only of what the text means, but of how the meaning are produced. The „how’ is as
8
Martha Rapp Rudell, Teaching Content Reading and Writing, Fifth Edition, Haboken: John Willey and Sons, inc, 2008 p. 95
9
Francoise Grellet,op. cit., p. 4
10
Jeremy Harmer, op. cit., p.182
11
Christine Nutall, op. cit, p. 38 —39
12
Francoise Grellet, loc. cit.
important as the „what’, for the intensive lesson is intended primarily to train strategies which the student can go on to use with other text.
13
b. Extensive Reading Extensive reading involves somewhat longer texts, those texts can be journal
articles, technical reports, longer essay, and books and reading of this type almost always involves a focus on meaning.
14
It is often assumed that in order to understand whole message of a particular reading material e.g., a book,
understanding the parts sentence, paragraphs, chapters of which it is made up is necessary. However, obtaining understanding of a text adequately often could be
done without grasping every part of it To understand the whole needs reading
strategies which can be trained only by practice a longer text.
15
5. Elements Affecting Reading Comprehension
According to National Reading, Panel in Tompkins article states that there are some elements affecting students reading comprehension. Those elements are
divided into two main categories reader and text. a. Reader
1 Background Knowladge Students activate their world and literary knowladge to link what they know
to what they are reading. 2 Vocabulary
Students recognize the meaning of familiar words and apply word-learning strategies to understand what they’re reading.
3 Fluency Students have adequate cognitive resources available to understand what
they’re reading when they read fluently. 4 Comprehension Strategies
13
Christine Nutall. loc. cit.
14
Douglas Brown, Language Assessment Principles and Classroom Practices, California: Longman, 2004 p. 212
15
Christine Nutall. loc. cit.
