Furthermore, Farris, Fuhler and Walther explained that: Reading means getting meaning from print. Reading is not phonics,
vocabulary, syllabication, or other ‘skills’, as useful as these activities may be. The essence of reading is a transaction between the words of
an author and the mind of a reader, during which meaning is constructed. This means that the main goal of reading instruction must
be comprehension: above all, we want students to understand what is on a page.
5
It means through reading, there is a transaction between the author or writer and the reader in getting and constructing meaning form the printed word.
Moreover, the readers or the students should understand and comprehend what is written on a text. Savage and Mooney said that:
Reading involves an interaction between a reader and a piece of written material. At the very basic level, the interaction starts with the
reader seeing black lines surrounded by white space. These lines register on the retina of the eye and are transmitted to the brain. The
reader recognizes these symbols – individually and in combination – and attaches significances to them. The words create an image or an
idea in the reader’s mind.
6
From the explanation above, it can be concluded that reading is not only an activity to see the words printed in a text, but it also requires a process for
obtaining the writer’s intention, getting information and ideas from the writer’s writing properly. Reading is also as a form of communication between the writer
and the reader through a text.
2. Purposes of Reading
People read something because they have their own purpose.
7
Generally, the purposes of reading are to get information of the text and pleasure. For
instance, people read newspaper because they should have any information about trending news or they choose to read novel because they search for pleasure.
5
Pamela J. Farris, Carol J. Fuhler and Maria P. Walther, Teaching Reading: A Balanced Approach for Today’s Classrooms, New York: McGraw-Hill, 2004, p. 324.
6
John F. Savage and Jean F. Mooney, Teaching Reading to Children with Special Needs, Boston: Allyn and Bacon Inc., 1979, p. 13.
7
Aebersold and Field, op. cit., p. 15.
As stated by McDonough and Shaw, reading activities are not merely to get the information but also to give enjoyment.
8
It is in line with Williams, quoted by McDonough and Shaw, who usefully classified reading into; getting general
information from the text, getting specific information from the text, and for pleasure or for interest.
9
Beside two major purposes of reading; for getting information and for pleasure, Harmer differentiates reading for several purposes:
a. Reading to confirm expectation, b. Reading to extract specific information,
c. Reading for communicative tasks, d. Reading for general understanding,
e. Reading for detailed comprehension information, function, discourse.
10
Meanwhile, Grabe and Stoller stated that reading has some purposes: a. Reading to search for simple information and reading to skim
Reading to search for simple information is also called as scanning in which the reader focuses on a specific word, or a specific piece of information,
or a few representative phrases. Meanwhile, reading for skimming can be said as a combination of strategies for guessing where important information might
be located in the text, and then using basic reading comprehension skills on those segments of the text until a general idea is formed.
b. Reading to learn from texts Reading to learn from texts is when a reader needs to learn a considerable
amount of information from a text. The reader gets the main and supporting ideas in the text and the reader connects the text to his or her knowledge.
c. Reading to integrate information, write and criticize texts Reading to integrate information requires critical evaluation of the
information being read so that the readers can decide what information to
8
Jo McDonough and Christopher Shaw, Materials and Methods in ELT: A Teacher’s Guide, Malden: Blackwell Publishing, 1993, p. 102.
9
Ibid., p. 102.
10
Harmer, op.cit., p. 191.
integrate and how to integrate it for the reader’s goal. Reading to write and to criticize texts are tasks variants of reading to integrate information. Those
mean the reader reads a text in order to search information needed for his or her writing task or making critique text.
d. Reading for general comprehension Reading for general comprehension is when a reader reads very rapidly
and processes words automatically. Besides, the reader also gets a general meaning representation of main ideas because he or she is not looking for
specific points, but rather for whatever is necessary to get an overall understanding of the text.
11
From the purposes of reading defined by some experts above, it can be concluded that the readers have their own purpose in reading written text. It is
based on what they need to know and what they want to know. The goals of readers in reading something are to get, to know and to understand the detail
information of a text or only to get some information that they need. Also, the readers read because they want to get enjoyment.
3. Kinds of Reading
When people read, they have their own purpose and it determines how people read a text. There are two kinds of reading described by Harmer, they
are:
12
a. Extensive Reading Extensive reading is a reading program conducted to the students outside
the classroom. The materials used in extensive reading are novels, newspapers, magazines, or any other reference based on their interest because
the aims of this program is for giving the students pleasure.
11
Grabe and Stoller, op.cit., pp. 7 – 8.
12
Jeremy Harmer, How to Teach English: New Edition, Pearson Education Limited, 2007, pp. 99 – 101.
