2  Providing Essential Background Information Adequate preparations for reading a piece of text include helping students
either recall or acquire necessary information to comprehend it. It is very effective phase  in  reading  activity,  which  it  helps  students  to  understand  the  text.  This
preparation may be provided in the form of pre-reading activity. 3  Establishing Purpose of Reading
The purpose of reading should be established first before starting to read. The  purpose  of  reading  is  not  only  to  get  information  but  also  to  get  adequate
comprehension.  Establishing  the  purpose  of  reading  will  make  the  reading  more meaningful.
e. Reading Materials
According  to  Simanjuntak  1988:  31-33,  in  preparing  reading  materials for the reading lesson, some points of view need to be considered.
1  Readability A  text  should  be  at  the  right  level  of  difficulty  for  the  students.  Both
aspects of reading, linguistic difficulty and semantic relevance, should be weighed before it is selected for use. The combination of structural and lexical difficulty is
readability. 2  Suitability of Content
Before  the  teacher  selects  reading  materials,  a  need  survey  is  needed  to obtain information concerning  students’ characteristics.  The  teacher  may  use  the
following guidelines:
a.  Will the text do one or more of these things? b.  Does the text challenge the students’ intelligence?
If there are new lexical items, are they worth learning at this stage and not too much?
c.  Does the text enable the teacher to ask good questions? 3  Exploitability
When the teacher exploits a text, he uses it to develop his students’ competence as a  reader.  Every  text  the teacher  handles in  the  reading  course  helps  to  move  the
students toward the goal. To  sum  up,  in  preparing  reading  materials,  those  experts  consider  some
aspects that are similar. They are the reader’s interest, and the relevant vocabulary or language.
The  curriculum  for  the  eleventh  grade  students  of  SMA  Santo  Bernardus Pekalongan is school-based curriculum. School-based curriculum is employed in
semester one and semester two as the basis in determining the goals and general objectives of the program.
The general objective required in this study is to  understand the meaning of short functional text in the form of narrative, explanation, and discussion in the
context of daily life and to access knowledge. Meanwhile, the specific objectives required in this study are:
1  to respond to the meaning of short functional text  banner, poster,  pamphlet formally  and  informally  used  in  written  text  accurately  and  fluently  in  the
context of daily life,
2  to  respond  to  the  meaning  and  generic  structure  in  an  essay  used  in  the  text accurately and fluently in the context of daily life and to access knowledge in
the form of report, narrative, and analytical exposition, 3  to respond to the meaning of short functional text  banner, poster,  pamphlet
formally  and  informally  used  in  written  text  accurately  and  fluently  in  the context of daily life,
4  to  respond  to  the  meaning  and  generic  structure  in  an  essay  used  in  the  text accurately and fluently in the context of daily life and to access knowledge in
the form of narrative, spoof, and hortatory exposition.
B. Theoretical Framework
To  design  a  set  of  reading  materials,  the  writer  adopts  Kemp’s instructional  design  model.  Kemp’s  instructional  design  model  steps  are  then
taken as the framework in developing the instructional materials.
1. Identifying Learners’ Characteristics
In  this  step,  the  investigation  of  the  learners’  characteristics  is  needed  in obtaining information about students’ capabilities, needs, interests, learning styles,
and  learning  conditions.  The  data  on  learners’  characteristics  are  important  to establish realistic and acceptable objectives.
2. Conducting Pre-assessment
This step is aimed at acquiring the information about students’ background knowledge. The data are valuable to determine students’ readiness and the level at
which the program should be set or started.