readers use information effectively to deduce cause and effect, and to anticipate what may come next. The last level, the critical comprehension, is where readers
are able to evaluate what they are reading. Another categorization of reading comprehension by Richards and Schmidt
2002 approves that comprehension involves concluding both the explicitly- stated information and implicitly-stated information as well as criticizing the
information contained in the text. In addition, they see another type of reading comprehension, which is appreciative comprehension. According to them, readers
who perform appreciative comprehension read a text in order to gain an emotional or other kind of valued response from the text.
In summary, there are four types of reading comprehension suggested by experts, namely literal, inferential, critical and appreciative comprehension.
Readers perform literal comprehension to conclude explicitly-stated information. Unlike literal comprehension, inferential comprehension is performed to infer
implicitly-stated information. As the names imply, readers perform critical comprehension to criticize the text they read and they perform appreciative
comprehension to gain emotional response. However, this research will only focus on literal and inferential comprehension.
c. Components of Reading
This part explains components of reading. According to experts, readers are able to comprehend texts only if key components of reading are in place. Curtis
and Bercovitz in Jacobson and Ianiro 2007 and Maharaj 2008 propose a bit different components of reading. Each of them is explaned as follows.
There are four components of reading suggested by Curtis and Bercovitz in Jacobson and Ianiro 2007, namely alphabetic, vocabulary, fluency, and
comprehension. To describe the relationship among these components, Kruidenier in Jacobson et al. 2007 illustrates that while reading, readers decodes words
alphabetic contained in a text, associates the words with meanings stored in their memory vocabulary, and processes phrases and sentences composing the text
rapidly enough fluency in order to build comprehension during the reading process. This sequence to comprehension is somewhat similar to what Spratt,
Pulverness and Williams 2005 has explained previously. It is indicated that in the attempt to make meaning from a text, one component influences the other
components. Meanwhile, Maharaj 2008 suggests phonemic awareness and word
recognition instead of alphabetic as the other reading components apart from vocabulary, fluency, and comprehension. In relation to phonemic awareness, she
explains that learners need to understand that words are made up of speech sounds called phonemes and therefore they should know how each word sounds.
Meanwhile, word recognition refers to skills that readers need in order to be able to read unknown words. There are two main elements involved in word
recognition, namely phonics and sight words. Phonics instruction teaches the relationship between the letters of written language and individual sounds of
spoken language. Sight words are words which learners recognize through features such as their shape and length.
In a nutshell, reading components is crucial in the attempt to understand a text. Reading components such as alphabetic, phonemic awareness and word
recognition deal especially with oral reading since they demand readers to know how words in print sound. They deal with the ability to hear and manipulate the
sound in oral language. Together with the other reading components, i.e. vocabulary, fluency and comprehension, these reading components help readers
build meaning from the text.
d. Characteristics of Written Texts Written texts differ from spoken texts in many ways. Brown 2001
mentions seven characteristics of written texts by comparing them to the ones featured in spoken texts. He explains those characteristics as follows.
1 Permanence
Once someone speaks something, a sentence for example, it vanishes. The hearer will only have the chance to listen to it once unless someone records the
sentence. Different from spoken texts, written texts are permanent and therefore their readers have an opportunity to return again and again to the texts.
2 Processing Time
Unlike spoken texts which force listeners to be able to follow the speaker’s rate of delivery when producing spoken texts, written texts ease their readers to
understand them in their own processing time.
3 Distance
Through written texts, it is possible to deliver messages from some other place at some other time. Readers do not have to be engaged in face-to-face
conversations with the author to accept the messages as what spoken texts do. To understand the messages, all that readers have is only the written texts. They
cannot directly get the answers from the author as what listeners can do to the speaker in spoken conversations. Therefore, this creates distance between them.
4 Orthography
In spoken language, listeners have phonemes along with stress, rhythm, intonation, pauses, nonverbal cues, and the like which enhance the message. In
written language, readers are only provided with graphemes to understand the content of the text. Punctuation and other items such as pictures or charts featured
within the text help readers to understand the text.
5 Complexity
Spoken language tends to have shorter clauses which are connected by more coordinate conjunctions. On the contrary, writing has longer clauses and more
subordination.
6 Vocabulary
Written English typically utilizes a greater variety of lexical items than spoken English does. Lower-frequency words often appear in written texts
because they facilitate the writer with more processing time due to the desire to be precise in writing.
7 Formality
This refers to prescribe forms that certain written messages must follow which thus make writing more formal than speech. In written texts, they have
rhetorical formality which requires writers to have logical order for comparing and contrasting something, opening and closing, and so on.
Briefly, there are seven characteristics differing written language from the spoken one. Written texts are permanent and therefore their readers have an
opportunity to return again to the texts. They ease their readers to understand them in the readers’ own processing time. However, readers cannot directly interact
with the author. To understand the messages, all that readers have is only the written texts. Compared to spoken texts, these written texts consist of longer
clauses and more subordination. They also utilize a greater variety of lexical items whereby lower-
frequency words often appear due to the author’s desire to be precise in writing. In addition, information contained in the texts is also arranged
using rhetorical formality. Such features of written texts might be either
accommodating or disruptive for comprehension.
e. The Processes of Reading
