Rivers and Temperley suggest that second language learners will want to read for the following purposes:
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1. To obtain information for some purpose or because we are curious about
some topic 2.
To obtain instructions on how to perform some task for our work or daily life e.g. knowing know an appliance works
3. To act in a play, play a game, do a puzzle
4. To keep in touch with friends by correspondence or to understand business
letters 5.
To know when or where something will take place or what is available 6.
To know what is happening or has happened as reported in newspapers, magazines, reports
7. For enjoyment or excitement
From the Rivers’ statement, it can be seen that reading has some purposes
based on the readers need. The readers need to get information in some curious topic, to know the instruction of tasks, to play a game, to understand the letters,
and to feel enjoyment. In addition, Heilman stated that the objectives in teaching reading of
primary grade are to help the child:
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1. Develop a large sight vocabulary
2. Expand his stock of concepts and word meanings
3. Learn and apply phonic principles for sounding out unknown words
4. Review and extend knowledge of language sounds associated with vowel
and consonant combinations 5.
Use punctuation for smooth meaningful reading 6.
Develop the skill of reading several words together as thought units, either phrases or sentences
7. Reduce the number of occurrences of reading errors such as hesitations,
regression, repetition, substitutions, or omissions 8.
Develop the ability to recognize known root words in new word forms which include prefixes or inflectional endings
9. Further develop the attitude that reading is always purposeful and that he
must clarify his purpose in specific reading tasks 10.
Use the context as an aid in attacking unknown words 11.
Enjoy and appreciate the vicarious experiences which are open to him in reading
19
David Nunan, Designing Task for the Communicative Classroom, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989, p. 33-34
20
Arthur W. Heilman, Principles and Practices of Teaching Reading: Second Edition, Ohio: A Bell and Howell Company, 1967, p. 170-171
Based on the explanation above, it can be seen that there are many objectives in teaching reading. It can help students to master vocabulary, to
develop meaning’s concepts, to pronounce the words correctly, to understand the sentences, to decrease students
’ error in reading, to recognize new word easily, and to enjoy in reading activity.
From purposes stated by many linguists above the writer concludes that the readers have their purposes in reading the written text based on what they need
and what they want. The readers need to know the information of the text, such as news paper, magazines, or instruction book in using or making something, and to
get specific information in answering the questions related to the text, and then to develop their vocabulary. Next, the readers want to get pleasure and enjoyment
when read something.
3. Problems of Reading
The readers find the problems when they read the text. The problems of reading, based on Harmer, are classified into some ideas:
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1. Language
Students will be more difficult to understand in reading a text with longer sentences and longer words rather than with the shorter one.
And they will have great difficulty in understanding the whole text when they face many unfamiliar words which text contains. Then, they
will have success in reading if they recognize many vocabularies without consciously thinking about it. It is clear that sentence length
and the percentage of unknown words are problems in comprehending the text.
2. Topic and genre
The readers think that the topic is not appropriate or they are not familiar with the genre of the text. It caused they may be reluctant to
21
Jeremy Harmer, The Practice of English Language Teaching: Third Edition, New York: Longman Publishing, 1991, p. 203-208.
engage fully with the activity. The lack of schematic knowledge may be a major problem to successful in reading.
3. Comprehension tasks
Comprehension is the major purpose in teaching receptive skills. Sometimes in teaching reading, the teacher gives tasks to be tested for
students rather than helps them to understand the text. Just testing them is not appropriate way to build their comprehension and sometimes
tasks or text that given for students are far too easy or far too difficult. 4.
Negative expectations The students predict that they will not understand with the passage
because they think that so difficult for them and make them frustration and de-motivating. Therefore, they have no interest and bored in
reading activity.
DeBoer stated there are some typical causes which then arise toward students’ difficulty in reading such as:
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1. Limited intelligence
2. Undesirable physical factors
3. Overemphasis on word recognition
4. Overemphasis on oral reading
5. Insufficient background for reading a selection
6. Failure to adjust reading techniques to reading purpose and type of reading
material 7.
Lack of appropriate teacher guidance According to DeBoer
’s statement, here the writer would like to discuss the students’ difficulty in reading as follows: first, limited intelligent that students’
have, they are not easy to comprehend the text quickly, but they are slow in getting growth. Second, undesirable physical factors, for example condition of
students’ classroom is not comfortable for them. Third, overemphasis on word recognition, students concentrate to recognize words in order to comprehend the
text. Fourth, overemphasis on oral reading, students are asked to read aloud but it
22
John J. DeBoer, and Martha Dallmann, The Teaching of Reading: Revised Edition, New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston Inc., 1964, p. 132-134.
cannot give them comprehension of the text that they read. Fifth, insufficient background for reading a selection, students do not have many background
knowledge, it caused they cannot relate their knowledge with the text that they read. Sixth, failure to adjust reading techniques for reading purpose and type of
reading material, students cannot differentiate technique in reading some materials, they read all materials by using one technique that is not suitable for
them. Last, lack of appropriate teacher guidance, the teacher does not use the suitable technique based on the
students’ difficulty, it causes students still have difficulty in comprehending the text.
Based on the explanation above, the writer sums up that reading has some problems. Those problems are the readers have some difficult in recognizing
vocabulary because they are unfamiliar with the text. The other problems maybe the readers do not have background knowledge to relate with the text. Therefore
the readers feel unconfident because based on their experience; they maybe think that reading is difficult.
B. DESCRIPTIVE TEXT 1. Definition of Descriptive Text
Descriptive text is a text which describes something. According to Djuharie, he said that descriptive text is a text which describes and gives more
detail information about particular people, thing, place and animal.
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It means that descriptive text tells the readers to know about something specifically by giving
characteristic of something which described. Meanwhile, according to Oshima, descriptive text tells about the senses
how something looks, feels, smells, tastes, and sound.
24
It shows how the reader can feel and imagine the description of text. In addition, Buscemi stated that the
fundamental to describe is appealing to the senses sight, hearing, and touch.
25
It
23
Otong Setiawan Djuharie, Gendre Dilengkapi 700 Soal Uji Pemahaman, Bandung: Yrama Widya, 2007, p. 24.
24
Alice Oshima and Ann Hogue, Introduction to Academic Writing 3
rd
Edition, New York: Pearson Longman, 2007, p. 61.
25
Santi V. Buscemi and Charlotte Smith, 75 Reading Plus 7
th
Edition, New York: The McGraw Hill Companies Inc, 2004, p. 44.
