The Definition of Reading

interpreting and understanding words but also relating the idea of the text with the reader’s knowledge. Snow 2002:11 defines reading comprehension as below explanation. Reading comprehension is the process of extracting and constructing meaning concurrently through interaction and involvement with written language. The words extracting and constructing are to emphasize both the importance and the insufficiency of the text as a determinant of reading comprehension. In addition, comprehension also entails these three elements based on Snow 2002: 12: • The reader : who is doing the comprehension process • The text : that is to be comprehended • The activity : in which comprehension is a part. Those three elements are main parts of reading comprehension because they are the evidence of comprehension’s existence. Brown 2001: 306 also has different view related to reading comprehension. Reading comprehension is primarily a matter of developing appropriate and efficient comprehension strategies which relate to bottom- up procedures and other enhances the top-down processes. Both information in the texts and reader’s background knowledge are crucial to attain reading comprehension. It can be concluded that reading comprehension is not as simple as many people think. The complexity nature of reading comprehension shows that reading comprehension is necessary to be learned by students. The variation of the information in the text and the reader’s background knowledge could help students in the process of comprehending a text.

3. The Process of Reading Comprehension

Realizing that reading comprehension is a process, there are some views related to it. Johnson 2008: 7 classifies the process of comprehension into receptive process listening and reading and productive process speaking and writing. Both of them are necessary in the comprehension process, not only about receptive but also productive. Then, these are the process of reading comprehension according to Grabe 2009: 14 : a rapid process, b efficient process, c comprehending process, d interactive process, e strategic process, f flexible process, g purposeful process, h evaluative process, i learning process, j linguistic process. It shows that reading comprehension is complex and detail.

4. Types of Reading Comprehension

Bos and Vaughn 2009: 314 propose three types of comprehension. The first is textually explicit in which the readers could find all information in the text. They do not need their background knowledge to understand the text because the meaning and information are stated clearly there. The second is textually implicit. The readers should use a bit of their background knowledge to understand the text because not all information is stated clearly. The background knowledge is necessary to help the readers comprehending the text. The last one is scriptually implicit which force readers to use their background knowledge to