Thus, Harris 1947: 9 concludes that “reading is not one skill, but a large number of interrelated skills which develop gradually over a period of many years.”
In a second language learning theory by Spolsky in Elyidirim and Ashton 2006: 3, the students perform their attitudes towards language learning in which
those attitudes contribute to the students’ motivation. There are various types of motivation. According to Ellis 1997: 75-76, there are four kinds of motivation.
The first one is instrumental motiva tion in which the students learn for some functional reasons, for instance to pass an examination, to obtain a better job, or to
attain a place at university. The second one is integrative motivation in which the students learn because of their own interest in the people and culture represented
by the target language group. The third motivation is resultative motivation in which the motivation is the cause of second language achievement. In such
motivation, the students will be more motivated if they obtain good achievement in the language learning. The last one is intrinsic motivation which involves
encouragement and maintenance of curiosity which flows as a result of some factors as the students’ particular interest to which they feel personally involved in
learning activities.
b. Roles of Reading
In a language learning activity, the process of reading plays several important roles. Bell 1998, as cited in http:iteslj.orgarticlesBell-
Reading.html., compiles ten roles of an extensive reading in the language learning process. One of them is closely related to the subject to be observed by the writer
in this research that is writing activity. Generally, an extensive reading activity provides knowledge in language competence, for example in practicing word
recognition. The width of word recognition can help students in other language skills performance. For instance, it can lead to improvement in writing activity.
Reading can provide insight in language learning in terms of models of lexical items and structural patterns as well. On the other hand, in writing and
reading relationships as a constructive task theory by Langer and Flihan as quoted in Indrisano and Squire 2000: 119, it is noted that writers and readers use similar
kinds of knowledge in making their meanings. They are knowledge about the language, knowledge about content, knowledge about genre convention,
knowledge about organization and structure, knowledge about pragmatics, and knowledge about interaction.
In addition, a research conducted on L2 learners in Japan shows that reading contributes more improvement in the students’ writing than in other
language skills. Tierney and Leys in Roswell and Natches 1989: 232 explain that “students will compare their own writing with the plot or character
development present in what they are reading and the quality of writing produced is related to the quality of reading during writing”. Therefore, they draw
a conclusion that selected reading experience can give contribution to students’ writing performance.
Basically, students always read for many different purposes. In general, they read for achieving pleasure or for accomplishing a particular purpose or for
both of them. Grabe and Stoller 2002: 13-14 view seven purposes for reading. PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
They are 1 reading to search for simple information, 2 reading to skim quickly, 3 reading to learn from text, 4 reading to integrate information, 5 reading to
write or search information needed for writing, 6 reading to criticize texts, and 7 reading for general comprehension.
Commonly, college students read for simple information. It mostly happens for the sake of academic purposes. In such reading, the students will
focus on the subject content of what they read and the language in which it is expressed. On this situation they read books and journals, take notes, summarize,
paraphrase, and then writ e essays. This condition leads to the other purposes of reading which are to integrate information and to write. In this case, the readers
have to decide what information to be integrated and how to integrate it for the readers’ goal. This purpose represents common academic tasks that call upon the
reading abilities which are needed in order to integrate information. For the purpose of reading to write, White 1995: 40 states that reading can provide
content, ideas, guidelines, and models.
c. Types of Reading Text
