The Nature of Reading Reading Comprehension

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CHAPTER II LITERATURE REVIEWING

A. Theory of Reading

1. The Nature of Reading

Reading is composed of two main processes: decoding and comprehension. These two processes are independent of one another, but both are necessary for literacy. Decoding involves being able to connect letter strings to the corresponding units of speech that they represent in order to make sense of print. Comprehension involves higher-order cognitive and linguistic reasoning, including intelligence, vocabulary, and syntax, which allow children to gain meaning from what they read. We will begin with a look at the component skills of the decoding process http:www.sagepub.comupm-data7086_wolfe_ch_1.pdf. Reading is a complex cognitive process of decoding symbols for the intention of deriving meaning reading comprehension and constructing meaning. It is the mastery of basic cognitive processes to the point where they are automatic so that attention is freed for the analysis of meaning. Reading is a means of language acquisition, of communication, and of sharing information and ideas. Like all language, it is a complex interaction between the text and the reader which is shaped by the reader’s prior knowledge, experiences, attitude, and language community which is culturally and socially situated. The reading process requires continuous practices, development, and refinement http:en.wikipedia.orgwiki Readingprocess. Peter 2001: 20 states that reading comprehension is seen as something that begins as early as the beginning of reading and not something that children move on to after they have learned to decode print. Even before children can read, the adult usually asks children questions about stories that they have just read to them.

2. Reading Comprehension

Reading cannot be separated from comprehension because the purpose or the result of reading activity is to comprehend what has been read. Reading without understanding what has been read is useless. According to Bloomfield taxonomy, there is a level of cognitive domain namely comprehension that is a type of understanding such that the individual knows what is being communicated. Comprehension takes place while the person is reading and it needs a set of skills that let him find information and understand it in terms of what is already known. Comprehension is the mind act or power of understanding Hornby, 1987: 174. Therefore, reading comprehension means understanding what has commit to user i been read. It is an active process that depends not only on comprehension skill, but also on the reader’s experiences and prior knowledge. Nutal 1996: 168-169 states that the central ideas behind reading are: the idea of meaning, the transfer of meaning from one to another, the transfer of message from writer to reader, how we get meaning by reading and how the reader, the writer, and the text all contribute to the process. Another definition is proposed by Harris and Hodge in Fresch 2008: 83 who state that “reading comprehension is the construction of meaning of a written communication through a reciprocal, holistic interchange of ideas between the interpreter and the message in particular context”. Klingner, et al. 2007: 2 state that “reading comprehension is the process of constructing meaning by coordinating a number of complex processes that include word reading, word and world knowledge, and fluency”. Paris 2005: 20 states “subtests of reading comprehension are entities like finding main ideas, selecting details, determining word meanings, drawing conclusions, determining cause-effect relations, and distinguishing fact from opinion”. Davis in Paris 2005: 20-21 reviewed the literature describing reading comprehension as a construct and found several hundred skills mentioned. Then, he sorted them into nine categories, such as: 1 Word meanings; 2 Word meanings in context; 3 Answer specific text-based questions; 4 Main thought; 5 Follow passage organization; 6 Text- based questions with paraphrase; 7 Draw inferences about content; 8 Authors purpose; and 9 Literary devices.

3. Levels of Reading Comprehension