d. Micro- and Macro-Skills of Reading
To achieve different purposes in reading, a good reader needs to master reading skills. According to Grabe and Stroller 2011: 8-
9, the term ‘skill’ represents linguistics processing abilities that are relatively automatic in their use
and their combination. Moreover, Grab e and Stoller 2011 view skills as “general
learning outcomes of goal-driven tasks, acquired gradually and eventually automatized.” ɒrown 2004: 187-188 divides the reading skills into two big
elements, namely micro-skills and macro-skills. In micro-skills, readers are required to have skills to deal with graphemes
and orthographic patterns and linguistic signals. Brown 2004 also provides the list of micro-skills of the reading comprehension as follows.
1. Discriminating among the distinctive graphemes and orthographic patterns of English
2. Retaining chunks of language of different lengths in short-term memory 3. Processing writing at an efficient rate of speed to suit the purpose
4. Recognizing a core of words, and interpret word order patterns and
their significance 5. Recognizing grammatical word classes nouns, verbs, etc. systems
e.g., tense, agreement, and pluralisation, patterns, rules and elliptical forms.
6. Recognizing that a particular meaning may be expressed in different grammatical forms
7. Recognizing cohesive devices in written discourse and their role in signalling the relationship between and among clauses.
In macro skills, readers need to make use of their discourse knowledge, communicative functions of written texts, inference skill, scanning, and skimming
techniques. Brown 2004: 187-188 presents the macro-skills of reading as follows.
1. Recognizing the rhetorical forms of written discourse and their significance for interpretation.
2. Recognizing the communicative functions of the written texts, according to form and purpose
3. Inferring context that is not explicit by using background knowledge 4. Inferring links and connections between events, ideas, etc., deduce
causes and effects, and detect such relations as main idea, supporting idea, new information, given information, generalization and
exemplification
5. Distinguishing between literal and implied meanings Grabe and Stoller 2011 add that those skills are acquired gradually.
Thus, it is important to take into account that being a skilled reader needs big efforts.
e. Reading Comprehension
Reading cannot be separated with comprehension since comprehension is an essential goal of reading. Anderson in Nunan, 2003 states that in an English
class context, it should be explicitly taught by the teachers. They should keep in as one of the principles of teaching reading, because monitoring comprehension is
essential to successful reading. Smith 2004 describes comprehension as “relating aspects of the world
including texts to the knowledge, intentions, and expectations we already have in mind.” Added to this, Lynch 1996 states that comprehension involves the
relationship among background knowledge, context, and language. According to Snow 2001: 11, reading comprehension is a process of simultaneously
extracting and constructing meaning through interaction and involvement with written language. As the discussion of the definition of reading itself, readers
extract information of written texts to construct the meaning of the texts. While Richards and Schmidt 2002: 443 list four kinds of reading comprehension. They
are: 1 literal comprehension: reading in order to understand, remember or recall
the information explicitly contained in a passage; 2 inferential comprehension: reading in order to find information which is
not explicitly stated in a passage, using the reader’s experience and intuition, and by inferring;
3 critical or evaluative comprehension: reading in order to compare information in a passage with the reader’s own knowledge and values;
4 appreciative comprehension: reading in order to gain an emotional or other kind of valued response from a passage.
Snow 2002 adds that comprehension consists of three major elements which are the readers, the texts, and the activities. The readers are the elements
that do the comprehending. They use their skills, micros and macros, and their background knowledge to comprehend the text. The texts are elements that are to
be comprehended. Reading activities definitely deal with all written texts. The readers make comprehension through them. The activities of reading are the
elements in which the interaction between readers and texts occurs.
f. Reading Comprehension Techniques and Strategies
To do reading comprehension, the students need to apply various strategies. According to Mereillon 2007, reading comprehension strategies are
“tools that proficient readers use to solve the comprehension problems they encounter in texts.” Brown 2001 proposes ten strategies that are applicable in
the classroom techniques for reading comprehension. They are listed below. 1. Identifying the purpose in reading.
2. Using grapheme rules and patterns to aid in bottom-up reading.
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