reading is a process to get meaning from a text that has read with through the process of recognition, interpretation, perception and evaluation of meaning.
2. Reading Comprehension
The essence of reading act is comprehension: it becomes a primary challenge in teaching or learning of reading skill. In order to learn or understand the
massage of the author, the students are hoped to have the ability to comprehend the written textbook.
Ellen K. Closs define reading comprehension as ―the process of readers
interacting and constructing meaning from text, implementing the use of prior knowledge, and the information found in the text
.‖
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In some paragraphs, the topic sentence may not state the complete main idea. The topic may be stated in one
sentence, and the writers idea about the topic may be expressed in another sentence or in several sentences in the paragraph. In this case, the reader must
combine ideas from several sentences to infer the complete main idea. To know that it is really expressing a complete idea, the main idea statement should always
be stated in a complete sentence with a subject and verb. The statement above is also suppor
ted by Barbara Hawkins that stated ―Viewed in the past as either a top- down or bottom-up process, we now thinking reading comprehension results from
interactive variables that operate simultaneously rather than sequentially.‖
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In line with this, reading comprehension ability is the major goal of reading comprehension. There are many skills that have to be completed in order to reach
comprehension ability. As Guy and Eva said ―Comprehension is made up of a number of basic abilities, including skill in recognizing words and their meanings,
in grouping words into thought units and in giving the proper emphasis to the thought units so that the sentences may be understood.‖
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In short, to develop
4
Ellen K. Closs, ―Teaching Reading Comprehension to Struggling and at Risk Reader:
Strategies That Work ‖ in The Reading Teacher. Nov. 2004. p. 272.
5
Marianne Celce-Murcia eds., Teaching English as A Second or Foreign Language, Boston: Heinle Heinle Publisher, 1991, p. 170.
6
Guy L. Bond and Eva Wagner, op. cit., p. 200.
comprehension abilities, we have to consider many skills that related to sentences and meaning.
Meanwhile George D. Spache stated that ―Comprehension is more than understanding the ideas conveyed by the printed word, for this ideas must be
meaningful to the reader and must be integrated with his own concepts.‖
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In other word, understanding does not mean the readers have comprehended the ideas, but
when the readers can combine the ideas of the text into their own concept it can be identified as a comprehension. With comprehension readers can get the ideas from
the text more useful. In addition, Philipot and Grave said in his book that ―a number of theoretical
considerations underline the understanding of comprehension and the suggestions for promoting comprehensions. The most important of these come from cognitive
psychology, the social constructivist orientation, and reader response theory. There are three concepts emerging from cognitive psychology. They are schema
theory, the interactive model, and metacognition. Then, the social constructivist orientation discuss about the general concept of constructivism, social
constructivism, and the significance of context.‖
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In other word, there are many theories which become a basic foundation in interpreting and identifying the
meaning of comprehension. So the writer can sum up that reading comprehension is the activity to
integrate written text that containing information into reader own concept, and to recognize of written materials,
interpretation of meaning and interaction with background knowledge in order to make the ideas from the text more meaningful.
3. Basic Comprehension Ability
In this term, consideration will be given to the basic comprehensions ability needed for the many reading process. The basic comprehension ability consist of
the ability to comprehending word meaning, comprehending thought units,
7
George D. Spache, Toward Better Reading, Champaign: Garrard Publishing Company, 1963, p. 61.
8
Raymond Phillippot and Michael F. Graves, Fostering Comprehension in English Classes.
New York: The Guilford Press, 2009, pp. 5 —12.
