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
28 in their ―house‖ schema apply, and they know what to expect and how to
behave. Then Richards and Schmidt 2002: 115 classify the term schema into
two types. They are content schema and formal schema. Content schema refers to background knowledge about the content of a text, i.e. depending on
whether it is a text about earthquake, economy, art or cooking. Furthermore, formal schema is knowledge about formal, rhetorical, organizational structure
of different kinds of texts, such as whether the text is a simple story, a scientific text, a news report, etc. Knowledge of both types of schemata
influence how a reader understands a text. In addition, Brown 2001 also states that content schemata includes
what we know about people, the world, culture, and the universe, while formal schemata consists of our knowledge about discourse structure.
Carrell and Eisterhold 1983: 560 give a clearer definition about content schema.
In other words, one type of schema which readers are said to possess is background knowledge about, and expectations of, differences among
rhetorical structures, such as differences in genre, differences in the structure of fables, simple stories, scientific texts, newspaper articles,
poetry, and so forth. Our schema for simple stories, for example, includes the information that the story should have, minimally, a
setting, a beginning, a development, and an ending. In schema theory research, this type of formal schematic knowledge is usually
contrasted with content schematic knowledge, which is claimed to be background knowledge about the content area of a text, such as a text
about washing clothes, celebrating New Year‘s Eve in Hawaii or Halloween in Carbondale, and so forth.
29 From the explanation above, it is obvious that the readers should have
content schemata in order to comprehend the text effectively. Based on the definition above, content schema can be summarized as anything the readers
know about the topic being discussed in the text. The more the readers know about the topic of the text, the more they have content schema. As a result,
they easily comprehend the text. Thus, giving the students interesting and familiar topics is an essential thing that the teacher should consider in the
teaching and learning of reading.
b. Schema Theory and Reading Comprehension
Brown 2001 points out that schema theory is a theory in comprehending an English text in which the reader brings information,
knowledge, emotion, experience, and culture – that is, schemata plural – to
the printed word. The characteristic of schema theory, with regards to reading, is that a text does not carry meaning by itself. As stated before, readers bring
information, knowledge, emotion, experience, and culture – that is schemata–
to the printed word. Zhao and Zhu 2012: 113 noted that comprehension is termed as an
interactive process which works between the text and readers background knowledge. Therefore, it always happens that readers contribute more
information than the print on page. Readers understand what they read since during reading they tend to take the stimulus beyond its graphic representation
and assign its membership to an appropriate group of concepts which are already stored in their memories. The reading process, therefore, involves
30 identification of genre, formal structure and topic, all of which activate
schemata and allow readers to comprehend the text. Therefore, the schemata of various knowledge and experiences play a very important role in reading
comprehension. In addition, Zhao and Zhu 2012: 114 noted that based on schema
theory, schema determines readers comprehension of the text. However, sometimes the information that the texts provided does not enough to activate
the relevant schema in students minds. That is, there are cases when students do not store the proper schema. Under such circumstances, teachers can help
students activate previous schema or construct related schema through the activities at the pre-reading stage. Questioning, brainstorming and pre-
teaching, pre-texting and pre-discussing are the simple and efficient pre- reading activities.
In relation to the above theory, Anderson in Carrell and Eisterhold 1983: 556-557 states that efficient comprehension requires the ability to
relate the textual material to one‘s own knowledge. Comprehending words,
sentences, and entire texts involves more than just relying on one‘s linguistic knowledge. As the opening quote from Anderson et al. points
out, ―every act of comprehension involves one‘s knowledge of the world as well.‖
According to Smith 2004: 14, comprehension may be regarded as relating aspects of the world around the readers
—including what the readers read
—to the knowledge, intentions, and expectations the readers already have in their head. Readers do not have to know something in advance in order to
31 comprehend it. Nevertheless, they must be able to relate new things to what
they already know if they are to comprehend texts . In other words, readers‘
understanding of a text depends on how much related schemata which the readers possess while reading.
To sum up, in reading comprehension, it cannot be denied that schema or readers‘ background knowledge gives a big contribution for the success of
comprehending a text. Considering the importance of activating readers‘ background knowledge, teachers should be able to create and conduct some
strategies which are able to recall and relate students‘ background knowledge with the text given.
c. Schema Activation Strategy
Keene and Zimmerman in Moreillon 2007: 21 suggest that readers make three types of connection in building their schema. They are text-to-self,
text-to-text, and text-to-world. 1
Text-to-self Connection Text-to-self connections require that educators know the children in
their care and be familiar with students‘ home lives and local communities. When modeling text-to-self connections, educators can use think-aloud
questioning to share their thinking processes. Posing and answering questions can be an effective vehicle for making comprehension through background
knowledge accessible to students. These sample questions center on three areas of text-to-self connection: feelings, experiences, and ideas:
