acquisition, and, if the reading text is interesting and engaging, acquisition is likely to be successful.
4
As the experts mentioned about the definition of reading above, it can be concluded that reading is a process delivering messages from the writer
to the reader. The readers read the written text with their eyes and bring it to their brain and interpret them with their background knowledge as
information. Every reader has different purposes in reading. The important of reading is when students read the text, and then they understand what the
writer wants to share with us.
2. Kinds of Reading
Most of reading skills are trained by studying short texts to get detail information. But others require the use of longer texts to complete books.
There are two kinds of reading; intensive and extensive reading.
a Extensive Reading
Extensive reading is often assumed to comprehend the whole book. Sometimes students have to understand the part of sentences, paragraphs,
and chapters. Actually, they do not have to understand the whole book in every single part of it. They just get the general on what they read.
Therefore, students can use some strategies to practice in understanding longer texts, such as scanning and skimming.
5
The using of scanning is to get detail information on what they want to know. Then, skimming is the
way students get the general information or main idea in the longer texts. Extensive reading can be a source of enjoyment and a way of
gaining knowledge of the world. Extensive reading is focused on the story not on items to learn.
6
So, it can be said that the aim of extensive reading is to read pleasure and get the general idea of the story or texts.
4
Jeremy Harmer, How to Teach English, Harlow: Longman, 1998, p. 68.
5
Christine Nuttall, Teaching Reading Skills in a Foreign Language, Oxford: Heinemann, 1996, pp. 38-39.
6
I. S. P. Nation, Teaching ESLEFL Reading and Writing, New York: Routledge, 2009, pp. 49-50.
b Intensive Reading
Intensive reading can be increasing learners’ knowledge of language feature and their control of reading strategies. It can increase
their comprehension skill. “The classic procedure for intensive reading is the grammar-translation approach where the teacher uses the first language
to explain the meaning of the text, sentence by sentence”. Intensive reading usually involves translation and comprehension of the text. The
use of translation is to analyze feature of language that they learnt, and to make sure the learners’ comprehension.
7
According to Nuttal, intensive reading can focus on several aspects:
8
1. Comprehension 2. Vocabulary
3. Grammar 4. Cohesion
5. Regular and irregular sound-spelling relations 6. Information structure
7. Genre features 8. Strategies
In comprehension, intensive reading can aim the understanding a particular text. This comprehension comes from the interaction
between the words and how the students relate their background knowledge to get the comprehension. Moreover, students’ attention on
vocabulary can be drawn to useful words, underlying the meaning and use of these words for later study. By reading texts, students will
discover new words that will be useful for their language skills. Intensive reading is important for students after they were taught by
the teacher. Students can learn autonomously outside the classroom by
7
Nation, Ibid, p. 25.
8
Nuttall, op. cit., p. 27.
reading. They can learn everything through reading; even the difficult grammatical features can be explained and analyzed by reading.
The students also learn phonics, spelling rules, and reading aloud. Reading is one of language skills that often used by foreign
language students, because they can read in anytime and anywhere. Certain texts contain certain kinds of information and students can be
helped to identify these different kinds of information. Intensive reading can focus on how the text achieves its
communicative purpose through these features and what this communicative purpose is. The more students read, the more they
understand their learning style. Intensive reading can be used to help students develop useful reading strategies. They can use the most
effective way that they think can improve their learning achievement.
3. The Purpose of Reading
