4. They get main ideas and make a summary, then make some
representation of words in the text 5.
Good readers should be confident and have curiosity to carry her ideas in to reading and to question the ideas in the text.
25
In addition, there are some criteria of good reading. Another expert such as Grabe in Pascoe and Wiburg Technology and Teaching English Language
Learners state the characteristic of fluent reading. The characteristics of fluent reading should be rapid, interactive, flexible, purposeful, comprehending, and
gradual.
26
This characteristic can propose the reading process of EFL students to get the fluency when they are reading for academic purpose, so that they become
active readers. It can be concluded that reading comprehension is a reading activity in
which the readers get the understanding and comprehension of what they read after they pass some steps such as observing and guessing what the topic,
predicting what will happen in the next sentence or paragraph, asking some questions and answering or finding the appropriate answers.
3. Kinds of Reading
There are some kinds of reading: a.
Reading aloud. This reading concern on oral matter primarily. This kind of reading focuses on “pronunciation” than to comprehension.
b. Silent reading. It can be shown that most people do reading silently and they
can comprehend the text.
27
Harmer divides kinds of reading in two kinds, namely intensive reading and extensive reading.
28
1. Intensive reading. This reading involves the teachers that guide students to
read a text in order to achieve an understanding of the text and how the
25
Jean Wallace Gillet et all, Understanding Reading Problems, Boston: Pearson Education, Inc, 2012, p. 166.
26
Mary Ellen Butler Pascoe and Karin M. Wiburg, Technology and Teaching English Language Learners, Boston: Pearson Education, Inc, 2003, p. 118.
27
Geoffrey Broughton et all, Teaching English as a Foreign Language, New York: Routledge, 1980, pp. 91
—92.
28
Jeremy Harmer, op cit, p. 99.
meaning is created.
29
This reading activity can be done in class by teacher’s instruction to students. Intensive study of reading texts can increase
learners’ knowledge of language characteristics and can manage their reading strategies. Then, intensive reading can drill students to read text
carefully and this reading usually takes many times because there are many things that must be learnt in several kinds.
2. Extensive Reading. This reading activity is the readers read longer texts and
it is usually for pleasure and involves global understanding.
30
In extensive reading activity, the readers do not have to to read a whole of the text or
understand each part of sentences or paragraph, however they have to need give attention extensively to the text they read, and it can develop by
strategies such as scanning and skimming, the use of content list and index.
4. Types of Reading Text
When students are reading a text, they may not know what kind of text in front of them. The introducing of types of text probably can be started when they
are in junior high school to facilitate them in understanding the function of the text they read. There are many types of reading text in English.
According to Anderson and Anderson, text has two categories, those are literary and factual, in which:
1. Literary texts consist of stories, movie scripts, limericks, fairy tales, plays,
novels, song lyrics, mimes, and soap operas. This category has three main text types; those are narrative, poetic, and dramatic.
2. Factual texts consist of advertisements, announcements, internet web sites,
current affairs shows, debates, recipes, reports, and instructions. The main texts that are included in this category are recount, response, explanation,
discussion, information report, exposition, and procedure.
31
29
Christine Nuttall, Teaching Reading Skill in a Foreign Language, new edition, Oxford: Heinemann, 1996, p. 38.
30
Francoise Grellet, op cit, p. 4.
31
Mark Anderson and Kathy Anderson, Text Types in English 1, South Yara: 1997, pp. 1
—3.
Meanwhile, Hartono classifies types of text into story genres and factual genres:
Table 2.1 Social Function of Story Genres and Factual Genres
32
Story Genres Social Function
Narrative To amuse, entertain and to deal with actual or
various experience in different ways News Story items
Factual text which informs readers events of the day which are considered newsworthy or important
Exemplum To dealt with incidents that are in some respect out
of the usual, point to some general value in the cultural context
Anecdote To share with others an account of an unusual or
amusing incident Recount
To retell events for the purpose of informing or entertaining
Spoof To retell an event with humorous twist
Factual Genres Social Function
Procedure To describe how something is accomplished
through a sequence of actions or steps Explanation
To explain the processes involved in the formation or workings of natural or socio-cultural
phenomenon
Report To describe the ways things are, with reference to
arrange or natural, manmade and social phenomenon in our environment
Analytical Exposition
To persuade the reader or listener that something is the case
Hortatory Exposition
To persuade the reader or listener that something should or should not be the case
Discussion To present at least two points of view about an
issue Description
To describe a particular person, place, or thing Review
To critique an art work or event for a public audience
Commentary To explain the processes involved in the formation
evolution of a socio cultural phenomenon, as though a natural phenomenon
Those are kinds of text that is seen in several contexts and function. However, from those kinds of text, there are some texts which are not learnt to
32
Rudi Hartono, Genres of Texts, Semarang: Universitas Negeri Semarang, 2005, p. 5.
