2.2 Reading Comprehension Achievements
As mentioned above that reading comprehension is the process of constructing
and understanding the meaning of a whole text in order to get the message from the writer. In this case, students reading achievement can be measured from
students’ ability to understand and to get the content of the text.
Achievement relates to how to do something successfully with skills, knowledge, and efforts. As defined by Hughes 1996:10 achievement is the result of
the successful efforts of the students in achieving the objective of the study. Further, Hughes 2003:12 states that the purpose of achievement is to measure on how
successful individual students, group of students, have achieved the objectives. According to Burns, Roe, and Ross 1996 in Henning 1997:269 comprehension
deals with word comprehension, sentence comprehension, paragraph comprehension, and text comprehension support it. In this research, reading comprehension
achievement refers to the eight grade students reading scores taken from a reading test covering the test items of word comprehension, sentence comprehension,
paragraph comprehension, and the whole text comprehension
2.2.1 Word Comprehension
Comprehending words meaning is the basic steps to comprehend a whole text in reading. It is very important because without comprehending the meaning of the
words it is impossible for readers to comprehend the whole text. This idea is supported by Gillet and Temple 1990: 99,
“it is important for the students to comprehend the word meaning because it helps them to comprehend the whole text
”. It other words, by understanding the word meaning, the students will be easier to
catch what the text tells about. Further, Wood 1991:57 notes that, “reading
improves vocabulary, and a larger vocabulary improves reading ”. It means that by
reading activities, the students can enrich their vocabulary and by having much vocabulary the students will be easier to comprehend a text.
In addition, Grellet 1996:15 argues that “inability to understand the meaning
of unknown elements often causes discouragements and apprehension for the students when they face a reading text
”. Thus, it is clear that comprehending word meaning is very important in reading comprehension. It is the key to comprehend a text,
moreover when the word has more than one meaning. Example:
My father and I went to a football match yesterday The similar meaning
of the word “match” is…. a.
concert b.
captain c.
competition d.
goal The answer of the question above is “competition”. The word “match” has the
same meaning with competition.
2.2.2 Sentence Comprehension
In reading activity, besides comprehending the word meaning, the students should comprehend the sentence meaning as well. It is also a vital part in reading
comprehension. According to McWhorter 1989:99, “a sentence expresses at least
one key idea, which consists of a simple subject and verb ”. It means that each
sentence has at least one subject and one verb. Moreover, Grellet 1996:15 confirms that
, “ it is better to understand the meaning of some words constructed in sentences than translating the sentences word by word
”. It is because a sentence can express the writer’s ideas. If a reader just translates a sentence word by word, sometimes they
cannot catch the exact meaning of the sentence. McWhorter 2001:414 defines that,
“sentence is a group of words that express a complete thought about something or someone
”. There are three kinds of sentences. They are simple sentences, compound sentences, and complex sentences
Wood, 1991:151. Simple sentence is a sentence that consists of one subject and one
verb; sometime it follows by a complement. Compound sentence is a sentence that contains of two or more subject and verbs, since they are made of two or more simple
sentences and joined by punctuations, conjunctive adverbs, or coordinate conjunctions. The last is complex sentence, it consist of a simple sentence and several
phrases. The phrases are not sentences because they are not express complete thought.
There are four steps in understanding sentences Mc Whorter, 1989: 86:
a. Identifying Key Ideas
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