Types of Classroom Performance

26 reading, story comprehension improves. Consider classroom activities that connect their real life or experiences to the book they read. 4 Establishing Reading Goals Even after students get the big picture, it is motivating for them to know why the text is important enough to be worth their effort. In addition to the real world interests and connections they develop during big picture activities, consider how each student in the class can develop personally meaningful goals to keep him or her engaged and focused during the reading. When part of their goals includes finding information to support their predictions or to answer their questions, students approach the reading with more motivation. Their goals can give them a purpose for reading, encourage them to monitor their comprehension, and stimulate active thinking as they read. Considering the activities in pre-reading phase proposed above, activating background knowledge becomes one of the important parts in pre – reading phase. It relates what the students already had in their head with the new information in the text. It helps them to prepare themselves in facing a new text and to comprehend an English text easily. Teachers should follow the reading lesson sequences in the teaching and learning process of reading in order to make it become successful. One of the steps in the sequences, i.e., pre-reading phase is considered as the most important step in the teaching and learning of reading. It is because in pre- reading step, the teacher must be able to attract students‘ attention toward the 27 text. The more the students are interested in the topic, the more they are motivated to read the text. The teacher in this phase should prepare the students by relating what in the text to what they face in their real life so that they can get the general idea of the text. Based on the above explanation, pre- reading phase influences how successful teaching and learning process of reading is.

4. Activating Schema as one of the Activities in Pre–reading Phase

a. The Definition of Schema

According to McGee and Richgels in Moreillon 2007: 20, a schema is a ―mental structure in which we store all the information we know about people, places, objects, or activiti es‖ If people have no schema for a particular topic, they begin that encounter with an immediate loss of comprehension. Keene and Zimmermann in Moreillon 2007: 20 liken schemas to ―homes in the mind.‖ This metaphor helps educators think in terms of the necessity of familiarity and comfort with a topic if the reader is to be successful at making meaning. By assessing students‘ schemas and activating or building background knowledge, they offer students critical support for comprehension. In line with above theories, Mikulecky 1989 defines schema as a general idea about a set of similar or related concept. For example, the schema the readers have for ―house‖ consists of all the experiences they have ever had or learned about connected with ―house‖. When the readers are confronted with a situation which they identify as a house or hose - like, the connection