The Nature of Reading

4 Reading for specific information scanning This skill is different from the previous skill. This skill aims to get specific information. For example, a reader may quickly look through a film review to find the name of the director or the star. 5 Reading for detailed information This skill aims to help the readers to understand what they are reading in detail. This is usually the case with written instructions or directions. 6 Interpreting text The readers are expected to be able to see beyond the literal meaning of words in a passage. They can use a variety of clues to understand what the writer is implying or suggesting. In addition, Brown 2003:187-188 also gives more specific English reading skills as stated below. 1 Micro Skills of Reading a Discriminate among the distinctive graphemes and orthographic patterns of English. b Retain chunks of language of different lengths in short-term memory. c Process writing at an efficient rate of speed to suit the purpose. d Recognize a core of words, and interpret word order patterns and their significance. e Recognize grammatical word classes nouns, verbs, etc., systems e.g., tense, agreement, pluralization patterns, rules, and elliptical forms. f Recognize that a particular meaning may be expressed in different grammatical forms. g Recognize cohesive devices in written discourse and their role in signaling the relationship between and among clauses. 2 Macro Skills of Reading a Recognize the rhetorical forms of written discourse and their significance for interpretation. b Recognize the communicative functions of written texts, according to form and purpose. c Infer context that is not explicit by using background knowledge. d 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, generalization, and exemplification. e Distinguish between literal and implied meanings. f Detect culturally specific references and interpret them in a context of the appropriate cultural schemata. g 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 interpretation of texts.

c. Types of Reading

Every written text has its own rules and conventions. The readers should anticipate the rules and conventions in order to process meaning efficiently. That is why the readers should know types genres of reading. The developed materials of this research use academic type of writing. The materials will provide some texts related to mathematics. There are so many genres present in any literature culture. Brown 2003:186-187 proposes various genres of reading as mentioned below. 1 Academic reading a General interest articles in magazines, newspapers, etc b Technical report, professional journal articles c Reference materials d Textbooks, theses e Essays, papers f Test directions g Editorials and opinion writing 2 Job-related reading a Messages b Letters emails c Memos d Reports e Schedules, labels, signs, announcements f Forms, applications, questionnaires g Financial documents h Directories i Manuals, directions 3 Personal reading a Newspapers and magazines b Letters, emails, greeting cards, invitations c Messages, notes, lists d Schedules e Recipes, menus, maps, calendars, etc

d. Classroom Reading Activities

According to Brown 2003:189 several types of reading performance are typically identified, and these will serve as organizers of various assessment tasks. 1 Perceptive . In keeping with the set of categories specified for listening comprehension, similar specifications are offered here, except with some differing terminology to capture the uniqueness of reading. Perceptive reading tasks involve attending to the components of larger stretches of discourse: letters, words, punctuation, and other graphemic symbols. Bottom – up processing is implied. 2 Selective . This category is largely an artifact of assessment formats. In order to ascertain one’s reading recognition of lexical, grammatical, or discourse features of language within a very short stretch of language, certain typical tasks are used: picture-cued tasks, matching, true false, multiple choice, etc. 3 Interactive . Included among interactive reading types are stretches of language of several paragraphs to one page or more in which the reader must, in a psycholinguistic sense, interact with text. 4 Extensive . Extensive reading, applies to texts of more than a page, up to and including professional articles, essays, technical reports, short stories, and books.

e. Assessing Reading

Brown 2003 proposes the idea that assessment is an ongoing process during teaching and learning process. The process can be in a written work, formal essay, productive performances like in reading and listening activities,