16
3. Reading
This section refers to some theories that related to reading. These theories conclude nature of reading, teaching reading skill, type of reading activity, and
technique of reading.
a. The Nature of Reading
According to Wallace 1992, reading is an activity of the way in which we use language. People use language for some purposes. Wallace 1992 also states that
people do reading activity at least for three reasons. Those are reading for pleasure, reading for survival, and reading for learning. Those three purposes have one core
that reading is a process of delivering. It means that when somebody does reading activity, Heshe
is trying to understand the writer‟s message by interacting with the text.
Meanwhile, Kustaryo 1988 states that reading is a process of understanding what have been read. Reading can also be told as an active thinking process because
when we are reading we will try to understand the content spontaneously. Kustaryo 1988 also stated that reading is an active process of comprehending meaning of
reading material.
b. Teaching Reading Skill
To teach reading skill successfully, teacher should have a good strategy in teaching. According to Anderson as cited by Nunan, 1989, there are principles for
teaching reading skill:
17
1 Knowing the reader‟s knowledge
Reader ‟s knowledge can influence reading comprehension. For teacher,
knowing the students‟ knowledge can help the teacher in making topic, asking questions, and finding the text that will be read by the students.
2 Build a strong vocabulary base
Vocabulary is very important in reading activity. Students‟ strong
vocabulary base can support the students in reading activity. The focus of teaching reading vocabulary especially in reading is basic vocabulary, while less
frequent vocabularies are taught implicitly by teaching the students how to understand the text.
3 Teach for the comprehension
Teaching reading should focus on how to comprehend the text rather than testing their understanding. The teacher can encourage students to use cognitive
skill that includes what strategies they can use to comprehend the text. 4
Increase reading rate It does not focus on speed reader, but fluent reader in which their reading
rate and reading comprehension skill are balance. 5
Teach reading strategies Giving students understanding to use a range of reading strategies must be
a consideration in reading class to match their purpose in reading.
18
6 Encourage the students to transform strategies into skills
The teacher should encourage the students to transform strategies of reading, conscious action that students take to achieve desired goals into skills.
7 Build assessment and evaluation into your teaching
In assessing students‟ reading skills, quantitative and qualitative aspects should be included. Qualitative assessment can be gathered by testing their
reading comprehension, while qualitative assessment can be gathered by giving reading journal responses or reading interest surveys.
8 Strive for continuous improvement as a reading teachers
The success of reading teachers depends on how they facilitate their students to discover what work best in their reading. So the teachers should have
good facilities for a good teaching process.
c. Type of Reading Activity
In general, there are three main types of reading activity Wallace, 1992. They are pre-activities, while-reading activities, and post-reading activities. The
explanations of those types are presented below: 1
Pre-reading Activities Pre-reading activities can be conducted in three ways. The first one is
providing students questions and statements. It is aimed to motivate the students for further activity and presenting particular discourse will be dealing with. The
19
second one is by giving cross-cultural pre-reading tasks. The third is by giving pre-reading task which challenge conventional outcome.
2 While-reading Activities
While-reading activities include offering the students alternative reading of a text, analyzing linguistic choices, and identifying parallel discourse. Offering
the students alternative reading of a text means the teacher gives more than one way of reading text. Analyzing linguistic choices means the teacher encourages
the students to understand the discourses which unfold in the text. Identifying parallel discourse means the teacher encourages the students to compare
discourses in parallel way to get better understanding. 3
Post-reading Activities Post-reading activities should be conducted to achieve a purpose of the
topic being learnt. The activity may be giving tasks, reflections, or providing other texts which are related with the previous text.
d. Reading Techniques
To comprehend the text, students are encouraged to employ reading techniques in order to have effective reading. There are some techniques that can be
used by students to achieve the purposes. The techniques are presented below:
1 Skimming
Skimming is a reading technique that involves students looking through the text quickly for general meaning of an article. It is used to find the idea of what
Kategori