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8 Recognise grammatical word classes nouns, verb etc. systems e.g. tense,
agreement, pluralisation, patterns, rules, and elliptiacl forms.
b. Macro Skills
1 Recognise the rhetorical forms of written discourse and their significance for
interpretation. 2
Recognise the communicative functions of written texts, according to form and purpose.
3 Infer context that is not explicit by using background knowledge.
4 From described events, ideas, etc. Infer links and connections between events,
deduce causes and effects, and detect such relations as main idea, supporting idea,
new information,
given information,
generalisation, and
exemplification. 5
Distinguish between literal and implied meanings. 6
Detect culturally specific references and interpret them in a context of the appropriate cultural schemata.
7 Develop and use a battery of reading strategies such as scanning and
skimming, detecting discourse markers, guessing the meaning of words from context, and activating schemata for the inperpretation of texts.
3. Purpose of Reading
Reading is a process which is done and used by the reader to get a message that is conveyed by the author through the media of written language. There are
many different purposes in reading activity, especially the main purpose of reading is looking for and getting the information, covering content and
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understanding of reading material. The following are the purposes of reading according to Grabe and Stoller 2002: 13:
a. Reading to search for simple information.
b. Reading to skim quickly.
c. Reading to learn from context.
d. Reading to integrate information.
e. Reading to write or search for information needed for writing.
f. Reading to critique text.
g. Reading for general comprehension.
Meanwhile, Rivers and Temperley in Nunan 1989: 33 state that second language learners will want to read for the purposes below:
a. To obtain information for some purpose or because curios about some topic.
b. To obtain instruction on how to perform some task for the work or daily life.
c. To act in a play, play a game, do a puzzle.
d. To keep in touch with friends by correspondence or to understand business.
e. To know where on when something will take a place or what is available.
f. To know what is happening or has happened.
g. For enjoyment or excitement.
4. Strategy of Reading
There are many strategies used in reading activity. Those strategies will make the readers easy to obtain the information as they need. According to
Tarigan 1994: 30, “
Untuk membaca menggunakan berbagai strategi, antara
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lain: membaca sekilas, membaca sepintas dan membaca teliti.” It means reading activity uses many strategies: skimming, scanning, and close reading.
a. Skimming
Skimming is reading type by way to cover or to explore the reading materials to obtain the main idea quickly. Skimming is used by students to find
out something or to obtain the general impression from a reading material.
b. Scaning
Scanning is a glance technique but thoroughly with a purpose to find out the specific information or certain information from reading materials. Scanning
technique depends on many purposes or questions that have been determined before.
c. Close Reading
Close reading is a way and effort to obtain a full understanding of reading materials. It is very important in the development of students’ knowledge. Close
reading strategy is a part of reading review. It must be realized that skills of reading review is a necessary tool needed for reading materials.
On the other hand, Brown 2004: 306 gives the strategies for reading comprehension. They are:
1. Identifying the purpose in reading
2. Skim the text for main idea
3. Scan the text for specifict information
4. Guess the meaning of words and a grammatical relationship e.g. a pronoun
reference 5.
Distinguish between literal and implied meaning.
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Based on the previous elaboration above, it can be generated that reading ability is a process to decoding the written symbol which involves a reader in
understanding the information from a text to find main idea, explicit and implicit information, word references, and meaning of certain word based on the context.
There are several aspects of reading skill which lead to the indicators that students or the readers are able to: 1 find main idea; 2 find explicit information; 3 find
implicit information; 4 find word references; and 5 find meaning of certain word based on the context.
5. Steps of Teaching Reading
According to William 1996: 51 there are three main phases needed to follow in teaching reading activity:
a. Pre-Reading Activity
There are some benefits of pre-reading activity such as to introduce and arouse interest in the topic, to motivate learners by giving a reason for reading,
and to provide some languages preparation for the text. In some cases the language made already has been introduced, or there may be no particular
language problem. In any case, language preparation does not mean that the teacher should explain every possible word and structure and the text, but that
heshe should ensure that the learners will be able to tackle the text tasks without being totally frustrated by language difficulties.
b. Whilst-Reading Activity
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This activities begins with the general understanding of text. The aims of this phase are to help understanding of the writer’s purpose, to help the students in
understanding the text structure, and clarify text content. c.
Post-Reading Activity The aims of post-reading activity are consolidate upon what has been read
and relate the text to the learners’ own knowledge, interests or views. Post-reading activity may also include the reaction to the text and to the whilst-reading activity.
B. Semantic Mapping Strategy
1. Concept of Semantic Mapping
Semantic mapping is derived from the words semantic and maps. Hurford and Heasley 1983:1 explain that the semantics is the study of meaning in
language. Mapping is derived from the word map. A semantic mapping, as construction, has essentially two aspects: visual and conceptual. A visual
semantic map is made up of forms, such as circles, triangles, etc. Conceptual semantic map contains verbal information inside and between the forms, which
represents relationship between the wordsideas Fisher in Raiziene 2003: 193. There are some definitions of semantic mapping proposed by some experts:
According to Sinatra 1986:4 defines semantic mapping as a graphic arrangement how the major and minor ideas are related in a written work.
Further, semantic maps are graphic displays of word meaning that offers the students a visual representation of how words and concept are related through
a network of organized knowledge Heimlich and Pittelman in Antonnaci, 2011: 18.
