2. Reading Comprehension
Wooley stating on his journal that reading comprehension is a process to make a meaning of a text but its goal is to understand the meaning of a whole text
not for each word or sentence.
4
While Dutcher in Ulmer et al stating that reading comprehension is a process which the reader background knowledge, the
information on the text and the situation when reading are interacted with each other.
5
From those points of view, the researcher concludes that a reading comprehension is the complex process to understand what it is about by using our
prior knowledge and connecting with the information on the text. Reading comprehension skill for EFLESL students is a little bit hard to
obtain. It could be because of the lack of memorizing the vocabulary, their method of learning, their motivations or even the interventions from another subject that
can be considered more important than English.
a. Major Components of Reading Comprehension Process
1 Decoding Knowledge Decoding knowledge is the knowledge used to determine a word with the
same meaning in the text. Decoding knowledge may be useful for reading comprehension but it may not necessary too. It is useful when the reader identify
the meaning of word. Many readers know the spoken language form of words but they do not know the written form. By using decoding knowledge, reader could
understand most of oral language in their written form. Decoding knowledge may not be necessary if the words were scientific but, we could use the context clues in
order to understand the sentence.
4
Gary Woolley, Reading Comprehension: Assisting Children with Learning Difficulties, Retrieved from
http:www.springer.comusbook9789400711730 , p. 15.
5
Constance Ulmer et al, Creating Games as Reader Response and Comprehension Assessment,
http:www.americanreadingforum.orgYearbooks02_yearbookhtml16_Ulmer etal revised.htm
, 2002.