Purposes for Reading Teaching Reading

16 Not only reading bases the synthesis and critical thinking, it also promotes independent learning.

a. Purposes for Reading

Wallace explained 1992: 6 three purposes of reading. The first is reading for survival. ‘Survival reading’ is a kind of reading in order to fulfil immediate needs, for example the sign ‘exit’ for a tourist. The second is reading for learning. This kind of reading does not have to be related to school. The main point is that reading extends the reader’s knowledge. The third is reading for pleasure. Different from ‘survival reading’ which helps people to deal with their environment, and ‘reading for learning’ which has clear objectives – to gain knowledge, reading for pleasure is done merely to the readers’ liking. Grabe and Stoller 2001: 187 stated that people read for various purposes such as to get the main idea and to locate specific information. However, commonly people read to learn information, to get general comprehension, and for pleasure. Grabe and Stoller explained that English for Academic Purposes EAP reading curriculum should fulfil the students’ various reading purposes including 1 to search for information, 2 for general comprehension, 3 to learn new information, and 4 to synthesize and evaluate information.

b. Teaching Reading

This part reviews the theory of teaching reading and how reading materials should be created or developed. The theories included the basic principles in teaching reading, the characteristics of an effective reading program in the content area, comprehension strategies, and vocabulary in reading. PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI 17 1 Basic Principles in Teaching Reading Cushenbery 1985: 3 proposed nine principles of teaching reading. These aspects are important for teachers since the principles affect their perspectives in lesson planning, giving time allotment for teaching reading skills, and in positioning reading in the curriculum. This study adopted four out of nine principles. a In developing a meaningful program of content area reading instruction, the teacher needs to keep in mind that students have various learning modalities which are preferred for mastering various reading skills. b The reading curriculum should be broadly based and include such important areas as word attack, comprehension, vocabulary, and study skills. c There is no one method of teaching reading which is totally sufficient to meet the needs of all students. d Finally, one of the most basic principles of the reading curriculum is to be sure that all curricular activities are directed toward the fact that all reading activities should be geared to help insure that reading is a pleasurable and enjoyable activity for the student. 2 Characteristics of an Effective Reading Program in the Content Area According to Cushenbery 1985: 12, there are number of characteristics of an effective reading program which might be utilized in the content areas. Briefly, the characteristics suggest the teachers, the curriculum, and the students be related one to another to create an effective reading program. This study employed two characteristics which are suitable for designing reading materials. PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI 18 a Every teacher needs to understand that a program of developmental, corrective, and remedial reading instruction must be a part of the total instructional plans. b To meet the reading needs of all students in the content area, a large number of diverse and interesting reading materials must be utilized. 3 Comprehension Strategies As quoted by Ambruster and Osborn 2002, the National Panel Report defined comprehension strategies as “specific procedures that guide students to become aware of how well they are comprehending as they attempt to read and write” Ambruster and Osborn, 2002: 69. The strategies are retelling, drawing inferences, getting the main idea, summarizing, and visualizing. These strategies are best used in classroom reading activities. Since the reading materials designed in this study will be used not for classroom activities, the writer used two out of five strategies. a Drawing inferences. Drawing inferences can be done in two ways. First, readers deduce relationships among the ideas in a text. Second, they use their prior or background knowledge to deduce what the text does not explicitly state. Teachers can help students draw inferences by asking questions which require inferences with a help of appropriate scaffolding, or they can ask questions whose answers are stated in the text, or from the students’ prior knowledge, or combination of them. b Getting the main idea. To get the main idea, knowledge about the structure of text is important for helping readers distinguish important from less important information. Teachers can teach students the structures of narrative and PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI 19 expository texts because the important information is seen through text structures. Text structure is effectively taught using visualizations such as maps. 4 Vocabulary in Reading Vocabulary mastery or word recognition skill in reading is important. According to Stanovich, “Skill at word recognition is so central to the reading process that it can serve as a proxy diagnostic tool for instructional methods” Stanovich, 1950: 208. It is possible for learners to have adequate word recognition skill and poor comprehension abilities but not the reverse. It had been proved that inadequate word recognition skill led to learners’ difficulties in developing reading comprehension abilities and the language use Stanovich, 1950: 208, Nation, 1990: 2. I.S.P. Nation proposed two approaches to vocabulary learning, direct and indirect vocabulary learning. The direct vocabulary learning forces learners to focus on the words while the indirect vocabulary learning focuses on other features. The vocabulary exercises in the designed materials used direct vocabulary teaching in order to enable learners to learn numbers of new words in a relatively short time. Moreover, the direct vocabulary is best done individually Nation, 1990: 119. The direct vocabulary learning exercises include guessing words from contexts and matching words and meanings.

3. School Based Curriculum