They are 1 reading to search for simple information, 2 reading to skim quickly, 3 reading to learn from text, 4 reading to integrate information, 5 reading to
write or search information needed for writing, 6 reading to criticize texts, and 7 reading for general comprehension.
Commonly, college students read for simple information. It mostly happens for the sake of academic purposes. In such reading, the students will
focus on the subject content of what they read and the language in which it is expressed. On this situation they read books and journals, take notes, summarize,
paraphrase, and then writ e essays. This condition leads to the other purposes of reading which are to integrate information and to write. In this case, the readers
have to decide what information to be integrated and how to integrate it for the readers’ goal. This purpose represents common academic tasks that call upon the
reading abilities which are needed in order to integrate information. For the purpose of reading to write, White 1995: 40 states that reading can provide
content, ideas, guidelines, and models.
c. Types of Reading Text
In order to achieve their reading purposes, people read many different types of reading texts. In general, genres of reading are divided into two. They are
fiction and non-fiction genre as it is cited in http:orangeusd.k12.ca.us.html by Hiscar 2004. Fiction genres consist of drama, fables, fairy tales, folklores,
horrors, humors, legends, mysteries, mythology, poetry, short stories, and tall
tales. In contrast, non- fiction genres concern with real things, people, events, and
places. The form of non-fiction includes essays, journals, text booksreferences, diaries, autobiographies, biographies, magazine writings, travel writings, nature
writings, science writings, histories, journalism, true stories using scenes, and dialogues.
According to Moore 1955, there are six characteristics of non- fiction text. The first one is significance. It is about the importance of the book and its
contribution to the knowledge of its specialized readers. The second is the newness of the material. The third is the accuracy of the facts and the
reasonableness of the inferences based upon them. The fourth is the scope of the book in which it completely covers the topic. The fifth is clarity in which it will
be easy to understand the book in organization and in phrasing. The last one is readability.
There are six general component skills and knowledge areas which can be identified in reading activity, Grabe, 1991: 379. They are 1 automatic
recognition skills in which a reader requires little mental processing in recognizing text since it happens almost unconsciously, 2 vocabulary and
structural knowledge in which they require readers’ understanding of la nguage structure and vocabulary, 3 formal discourse structure knowledge that is the
understanding of how information is put together into various genres of type, for example narration, exposition, and persuasion, 4 content background knowledge
is prior knowledge of text related to the cultural information in the text, 5 synthesis and evaluation skillsstrategies are the ability to read and compare
information from many sources and then to decide which information is relevant PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
to one’s purpose, 6 metacognitive knowledge and skills monitoring are the ability to reflect on what is being read. Writing is considered as a product in which these
