Theoretical Significances Practical Significances

interweave their background knowledge to create a better concept of their thought. One of the keys to reach comprehension is by knowing the aims or the purposes of reading. The experts propose some motives of doing reading. Grabe and Stoller 2011 classify, at least, four purposes of reading in general: 1 reading to search for simple information and reading to skim, 2 reading to learn from texts, 3 reading to integrate information, write, and critique texts, and 4 reading for general comprehension. Reading to search for simple information is a common reading ability, though some researchers see it as relatively independent cognitive process Guthrie Kirsch, 1987 in Grabe and Stoller, 2011:7. In reading, the readers typically scan the text for specific information and skim the text for general understanding Grabe and Stoller, 2011. Reading to learn typically occurs in academic and professional contexts in which readers need to learn a considerable amount of information from a text. Reading to integrate information requires additional decisions of the readers about the importance of information from some sources, especially by supporting the information, and restructuring their own concept. In reading for general comprehension, the readers need to have skills in forming a general meaning representation of main ideas.

b. Types of Reading Performances

In English class, variety of texts can determine the variety of reading performance. Thus, teachers should consider kinds of texts for the students. According to Brown 2001:312, there are two types of classroom reading performance. The first type is oral reading. Teachers can ask the students to read orally at the beginning and intermediate levels. Oral reading activities can evaluate bottom- up process skills, check the students’ pronunciation, and highlight a certain short segment of a reading passage. The teachers may ask the students at the advanced level to read orally only to get their participation in attending a certain part of reading texts. Too much using oral reading causes several disadvantages. Brown 2001:312 states that oral reading is not a very authentic language activity. While one student is reading, other can easily lose attention. Oral reading also may have the outward appearance of student participation when in reality it is mere recitation. The second type of reading performance is silent reading. Silent reading can be categorized into intensive reading and extensive reading. Intensive reading is usually a classroom-oriented activity that focuses on the linguistic or semantic details of a passage. Intensive reading calls the students’ attention to grammatical forms, discourse markers, and other surface details. Brown 2001:313 says that exte nsive reading is carried out “to achieve a general understanding of a usually somewhat longer text. Different from intensive reading, extensive reading is performed a lot outside of the class time, for examples, reading novels, articles, essays, etc. It does not attend much the surface forms of the texts.