a. Approaches and Methods in Teaching Reading
Related to the implementation of teaching reading, there are three popular approaches of teaching reading, they are: bottom-up approach, top-down approach
and interactive approach. The three approaches will be described below: 1.
Bottom-up approach Bottom-up approach is the process by which the students recognize a multiplicity
of linguistic signal from the reading texts Brown, 2001: 299. The linguistic signals are for example letters, morphemes, syllables, words, phrases,
grammatical cues, discourse makes. From the linguistic signal the readers then select the signals that make some sense to find the meaning from the texts.
Alderson 2000: 16 says that this view tries to see reading as a process of decoding the written symbols.
2. Top-down approach
Top-down approach is the process in which the readers draw on their own intelligence, experience and knowledge of the world to understand a text.
Alderson 2000: 17 states that top-down approach emphasizes to the importance of schemata and the reader’s contribution to the text. It means that top-down
processing is closely related to the reader’s background knowledge that affect to
the comprehension of the text. The readers in the top-down approach need the ability to predict from the context clues of the text combined to their own
background knowledge about the topic of the text.
3. Interactive approach
Interactive approach is a combination between top-down approach and bottom-up approach Brown, 2001: 299. This process is considered as a successful method
to be applied in reading. Technically, the use of interactive approach is shifting between top-down processes and then bottom-up process to extract the message of
the text. Like what is said before that bottom-up approach focuses on the decoding process
of the graphic symbols. Contrary, the top- down approach focuses on the reader’s
knowledge and experience of the world to be applied to understand the message of the text. The combination of both bottom-up approach and top-down approach is
really important to comprehend the text better. The approaches above are to help the students in comprehending the micro and
macro- skills. These skills are stated by Brown 2004:187: Micro-skills
a Discriminating among distinctive graphemes and orthographic patterns of
English. b
Retaining chunks of language of different lengths in short term memory. c
Processing writing at an efficient rate of speed to suit the purpose. d
Recognizing a core of words, and interpret word order patterns and their significance.
e Recognizing grammatical word classes nouns, verb etc. systems e.g. tense,
agreement, pluralisation, patterns, rules, and elliptical forms. f
Recognizing that a particular meaning may be expressed in different grammatical forms.
g Recognizing cohesive devices in written discourse and their role in signaling the
relationship between and among clauses.
Macro-skills a
Recognizing the rhetorical forms of written discourse and their significance for interpretation.
b Recognizing the communicative functions of written texts, according to form and
purpose. c
Inferring context that is not explicit by using background knowledge. d
From described events, ideas, etc. Infer links and connections between events, deduce causes and effects, and detect such relations as main idea, supporting
idea, new information, given information, generalization, and exemplification. e
Distinguishing between literal and implied meanings. f
Detecting culturally specific references and interpret them in a context of the appropriate cultural schemata.
g Developing and use a battery of reading strategies such as scanning and
skimming, detecting discourse markers, guessing the meaning of words from context, and activating schemata for the interpretation of texts.
b. Types of Reading Performance
Kategori