f. Reading for General Comprehension
Since someone reads to get the comprehension of the text, this purpose becomes takes place when we read an interesting novel, newspaper, or
magazine. Students read a text learn to find out information, to be entertained, to
reflect or as religious practice. The purpose for reading is closely connected to a person’s motivation for reading. It will also affect the way a book is read. Jeremy
Harmer said in his book that many students want to be able to read texts in English either for their career and their pleasure.
10
The essential purpose of reading generally is to get new information or pleasure. Reading for information is reading that we do not stop to analyze the
grammatical structures; we understand the structure without thinking about it. Reading for information requires that we understand the meaning of passage.
Reading for information may range from the scanning of documents and the reading of letters to in depth understanding of articles of books. Whether we
are reading for pleasure or information, the nature of the reading depends on what the readers want from the text.
6. Principles of Reading
There are six basic principles in teaching reading based on Harmer’s book, as follows:
a. Encourage students to read as often and as much as possible
The more students read, the better they get. Everything the English teachers do should encourage them to read extensively as well as
– if not more than – intensively. It is a good idea to discuss this principle with students.
b. Students need to be engaged with what they are reading
Outside normal lesson time, when students are reading extensively, they should be involved in joyful reading, the teachers try to help them get as
much pleasure from it as possible. But during lesson, the teachers will do our
10
Jeremy Harmer, How to Teach English, op.cit., p. 99.
Kategori