Intensive Reading Types of Reading

According to Lems, reading comprehension is a skill to create meaning that is given from a printed text. 13 Alexander determined comprehension as an active process to comprehend a text which requires learners’ background knowledge with the information of the text. 14 It can be described that comprehension needs active readers who bring their ideas or background knowledge related to the information of the text in order to make appropriate inferences easily. Without comprehension, the readers just read word by word without getting the meaning of the text. Furthermore, reading comprehension is also determined as getting the essential information from a text and understanding it as efficiently as possible. 15 Students read a text and comprehend it based on their purposes of reading by getting the information which they are looking for. For example, when they get an advertisement, they deny the unimportant information and seek the most significant information of the text. Therefore, comprehension above means that the readers need the ability to locate the relevant information carefully based on their particular purposes of reading. Comprehending a text requires readers who have good comprehensions to construct an appropriate message of the text. According to Gillet, et al., there are some characteristics of being a good comprehensive reader such as: recalling their prior knowledge of the reading topic, inquiring some questions about the topic before and during the reading, constructing appropriate interpretations of the text if the ideas are implicitly stated, and getting main ideas, making a summary, and some representation of the words in the text. 16 Based on the explanation above, thus, reading comprehension is important and it is a complex process, which requires the readers to integrate words and 13 Kristin Lems, et al., Teaching Reading to English Language Learners: Insights from Linguistics, New York: The Guilford Press, 2010, p. 170. 14 J. Estill Alexander, Teaching Reading, Boston: Scott, Foresman and Company, 1989, p. 127. 15 Frangoise Grellet, Developing Reading Skill a Practical Guide to Reading Comprehension Exercise, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1999, p. 3. 16 Jean Wallace Gillet, et al., Understanding Reading Problems: Assessment and Instruction, Boston: Pearson Education, Inc., 2012, p. 166. sentences of the text using their brain into a meaningful whole. 17 It means that comprehending a text needs active readers to analyze and process words and sentences to construct an appropriate meaning by connecting to their background knowledge, personal experience and vocabulary mastery to get a meaningful understanding of the text.

5. Strategies for Reading Comprehension

A message of written text can be properly received by the readers with varying degrees of comprehending. Readers who have good skills in comprehension will easily construct the meaning of the text. However, being good comprehensive readers is not easy because sometimes they face some reading problems which can disturb their comprehension. There are several essential comprehension strategies for the readers to improve their reading comprehension. 18 a. Using Prior Knowledge In order to comprehend a text, students need to integrate their new information from the text with their background knowledge related to the text. b. Asking and Answering Questions When reading, making some questions and reading to answer the questions are reading activities in improving their ability to get significant details from the text. By asking some questions related to the text, the students will more pay attention to the information to answer the questions. c. Determining What is Important The purpose of reading is getting information. However, most texts contain so much information which sometimes make students confuse what information should they get from the text. In this case, students need to deny the unimportant information and focus on the most significant information from the text based on their purpose of reading. 17 Jane Oakhill, et al., Understanding and Teaching Reading Comprehension: A Handbook, New York: Routledge, 2015, p. 1. 18 Raymond Philippot, and Michael F. Graves, Fostering Comprehension in English Classes, New York: The Guilford Press, 2009, pp. 107—115.