CHAPTER II LITERATURE REVIEW
A. Reading
1. The Definition of Reading
Reading is a receptive skill in understanding the words in written
form. Reading is an activity to look and understand the meaning of
written or printed words or symbols (Hornby, 1975: 241).Grellet (1981:
7) said that reading is constant process of guessing, and what one brings
to the text is often more important than one finds it.
According to Nunan (1991: 70), reading is a dynamic process in
which the text elements interact with other factors outside the text; in this
case most particularly with the reader’s knowledge of experimental
content of the text.
From the statements above, it can be concluded that reading is the
process of mind to get the information and knowledge with
comprehending all of reading texts.
2. The Importance of Reading
Reading is one of the important aspects for the students, especially
in English. From reading the students can get many information and
knowledge. There are many books to support their reading habit before;
some of the students will feel difficulty to understand of the books, etc
“Reading plays very important parts in our life. Through reading we can explore the world, countries that have never been visited before, and the minds and ideas of great people in the past, all of which will enrich our experience and knowledge and broaden our horizon. To a student, reading is also something important and dispensable since the success of their study depends on his ability to read.”
As the students who study English lesson, reading is one of the
important skills, because the students will explore much information,
knowledge from reading activity. Besides that, it can give more
vocabularies to the students.
3. The Aims of Reading
There are some aims of reading (Tarigan, 2008: 9):
a. Reading for details of facts
It means that students read to get or to know information that have
been done by the writer or solve the problems of the writer.
b. Reading for main ideas
The students read the text to know “why are the topic good, then the
problems on the story and make summaries of the story”.
c. Reading for sequence or organization
The students read the text to know “what is happening in each part the
story in every episode; solve the problems of the story”.
d. Reading to classify
The students read the text to classify some information or actions of
e. Reading for inference
The students read in order to find out the conclusion from the action
or ideas in the text.
f. Reading for comparing
The students read to compare the plot of the story or content whether
having similarity with him or event contrast.
4. The Reading Types
The research focuses on Recount and Narrative texts because they
are enclosed in the syllabus of the VIII grade of junior high school.
a. Recount
1) The Definition of Recount Text
Recount text is a text which retells events or experiences in the
past. Its purpose is to inform or to entertain the audience.
2) Generic Structure :
a) Orientation
Identify a person or thing acted or got involved in the event,
including the time, a certain place, the situation, etc.
b) Series of Events
Tell what happened, in what sequenced.
c) Re-orientation
Contain personal comments (not always/optional).
3) Language Features:
b) Use of material process (action verb)
c) Use of past tense
b. Narrative
1) The Definition of Narrative Text
Narrative text is a text to amuse, entertain and to deal with actual or
various experience in different ways.
2) Generic Structure :
a) Orientation
Provides the setting and introduces participants.
b) Complication
Describes a crisis arises or a problem arises.
c) Resolution
Shows the way of participant to solve the crises, better or worse
3) Language Features:
a) Focus on specific and usually individualized participants.
b) Use of past tense.
c) Use of material process (action verb).
5. Assessing Reading
There are micro skills and macro skills that represent the spectrum
of possibilities for objectives in the assessment of reading comprehension
a. Micro skills
1) Discriminate among distinctive graphemes and orthographically
terms of English.
2) Retain chunks of language of different lengths in short term
memory.
3) Process writing at an efficient rate of speed to suit the purpose.
4) Recognize a core of words, and interpret word order patterns and
their significance.
5) Recognize grammatical word classes (nouns, verbs, etc.), system
(e.g., tense, agreement, and pluralization), patterns, rules, and
elliptical forms.
6) Recognize that a particular meaning may be expressed in different
grammatical forms.
7) Recognize cohesive devices in written discourse and their role in
signaling the relationship between and among clauses.
a. Macro skills
1) Recognize the rhetorical forms of written discourse and their
significance for interpretation.
2) Recognize the communicative functions of written texts, according
to form and purpose.
3) Infer context that is not explicit by using background knowledge.
4) From described events, ideas, etc., infer links and connections
relations as main idea, supporting idea, new information, given
information, generalization, and exemplification.
5) Distinguish between literal and implied meanings.
6) Detect culturally specific references and interpret them in a context
of the appropriate cultural schemata.
7) Develop and use a battery of reading strategies, such as scanning
and skimming, detecting discourse markers, guessing the meaning
of words from context, and activating schemata for the
interpretation of text.
The purpose of reading comprehension in this research is to find
specific information in the text. So, the micro skills and macro skills
which are evaluated in this research are as follows:
1) Micro skills
a) Recognize grammatical word classes (nouns, verbs, etc.), system
(e.g., tense, agreement, and pluralization), patterns, rules, and
elliptical forms.
b) Recognize that a particular meaning may be expressed in
different grammatical forms.
2) Macro skills
a) Infer context that is not explicit by using background
knowledge.
b) Develop and use a battery of reading strategies, such as scanning
meaning of words from context, and activating schemata for the
interpretation of text.
B. Reading Comprehension
1. The Definition of Reading Comprehension
Reading comprehension is reading with understanding or silent
reading. Nuttal defines reading comprehension just as it quoted in Anton
(1995: 24) as follows:
“Reading comprehension means reading comprehension lesson that
have traditionally centered on a passage of the text followed by
questions. Good questions are the ones which help readers to contribute
actively to process of making sense of it, rather than expecting
understanding just to happen”.
Reading comprehension is the process of understanding and
constructing meaning from a piece of text.
2. The Components of Reading Comprehension
In comprehending the reading material, the most important thing
that needs to be considered is component of reading itself. According to
Leu and Kinzer (1987: 30-37), there are six major components of reading
comprehension:
a. Decoding Knowledge
It refers to the knowledge readers used to determine the oral
comprehension when determining the oral equivalent of a word helps
a reader to identify meaning.
b. Vocabulary Knowledge
It is the knowledge one has about word meaning used to determine the
appropriate meaning for a word in a particular text.
c. Discourse Knowledge
It refers to knowledge of language organization at units beyond the
single sentence level. It includes knowledge of the structural
organization of different types of writing.
d. Readiness Aspect
It refers to different concepts traditionally, reading readiness is the
ability of a student to benefit from initial reading instruction.
Recently, reading readiness also include being ready to read and
understand a particular selection.
e. Affective Aspect
Affective aspect in reading comprehension includes both attitude and
interest. These increases motivation and facilitate reading
comprehension.
f. Syntactic Knowledge
It includes understanding word order rules that exist within sentences
and permit you to determine the grammatical function and often the
C. Cloze Procedure
1. The Definition of Cloze Procedure
Cloze procedure is a process of systematically deleting words from
a passage and replacing them with blanks to be filled by students. Thus,
once the actual text has been chosen, the construction of cloze procedure
is quite objective; deletions every fifth, sixth, seventh . . . or tenth word
by the teacher. Madsen (1999: 47) states that cloze procedure is prose
passages, usually a paragraph or more in length, from which words have
been deleted.
2. The Type of Cloze Procedure
Cloze procedure has two types as follows:
a. Random Deletions
It deletes words at regular intervals, such as every fifth, sixth, seventh
. . . or tenth word, regardless of what kind of words they are.
b. Selective Deletions
It selects certain categories of words to delete. To assess students’
knowledge of the topic or their abilities to use semantic cues, delete
content words which carry meaning, such as nouns, main verbs,
adjectives and adverbs. To assess students’ use of syntactic cues,
delete some conjunctions, preposition and auxiliary words.
Based on the explanation above, this research uses random and
3. The Criteria of Good Cloze Procedure
Cloze procedure passages can be taken from a variety of sources.
Following are some useful suggestions made by Stainman (2001)
a. Choose the passages that have a high interest level and are at the
reading level of the students.
b. Select interesting stories.
c. Use the students’ written compositions from the previous courses.
They are generally written an unsophisticated vocabulary, simple
structures and concrete meaning.
d. Select passages with pictures at the top, or match pictures and
passages, to help the students understand the passage.
4. How to Prepare Cloze Procedure
The steps in preparing the cloze procedure are simple:
a. Select an appropriate passage. The first and most important step is to
choose a story or essay on the right level.
b. Decide on the ratio of words to take out. With the passage chosen, you
are ready to decide which words to take out. Leaving the first and
second sentences and the last one as they will help students
understand the overall meaning. Words are taken out at regular
intervals-the shortest interval being one in five (every fifth word
deleted). The most frequently used deletion is one in seven or all these
c. Write the instructions and prepare an example. In taking cloze
procedure, the students can normally do better if they look over the
whole passage first. Therefore, it is good to prepare the instructions.
5. The Advantages of Cloze Procedure
The flexibility of cloze procedure as a teaching technique for
reading comprehension in the classroom affords an excellent challenge
for both teachers and students. Guangling(2006: 20) provides detailed list
of advantages as follows:
a. Construction of cloze procedure is quite objective.
b. Cloze procedure encourages the learners to link new information with
previously learned material (prior knowledge) and to initiate questions
to be asked.
c. Cloze procedure involves the learners in thinking about what they are
reading.
d. In general, a cloze procedure provides opportunities for recall and
contributes to better conceptual organization of information.
e. Activities using cloze procedure can help learners develop reading
skill of sequencing and spelling the word.
6. The Disadvantages of Cloze Procedure
Every technique of teaching learning process has advantages and
disadvantages. Cloze procedure also has both of them. According to
Guangling (2006: 30), there are some disadvantages of cloze procedure
a. If the cloze procedure is overused, it will lead to frustration and
boredom on the part of the students. In order to overcome the
students’ boredom, cloze procedure can be taken from variety of
sources. The teacher must also use an up to date reading text which is
suitable with the students’ level, age, background, etc.
b. Reading can be risky. In using cloze procedure tend to use gambling,
especially when they do not understand the meaning words/sentences.
In order to avoid hard risk, the teacher must provide the words answer.
D. Teaching Reading Comprehension Using Cloze Procedure
In teaching and learning process, teacher is demanded to be able to
teach his or her students using appropriate strategies for appropriate material.
In teaching, teacher applies cloze procedure in pre-reading activity.
The teacher gives a main topic to the students first before dividing the text.
The aim of this strategy is to predict reading activity. According to Guangling
(2006: 27), cloze procedure technique in teaching reading comprehension
consisted of the following steps:
1. The teacher begins the class by stating the purpose of the activity and
announcing the title of the passage. Before distributing the cloze passage,
the teacher poses some questions about the title. In this way, the students
begin to build up some predictions.
2. If the students are not familiar with the cloze procedure, the teacher
missing words with the help of the context. The teacher should
emphasize that they must not be afraid to take risks and that wrong
guesses frequently lead to learning.
3. Then the teacher hands out the cloze passage and tells the students to
read quickly and silently the first and the last sentences, which do not
have any deletions. Again, questions are asked in order to enhance the
number of predictions about the passage, and to help the students
discover the main idea of the passage.
4. The teacher now reads the passage aloud, trying to maintain a correct
intonation and making necessary pauses. This will give the students some
cues for understanding. During the reading, the teacher can say the
missing words mentally in order not to lose the intonation and rhythm, or
she can say aloud the word “blank” at the deletions. Meanwhile, the
students are silently reading the cloze passage along with the teacher.
5. The teacher tells the students to read the first paragraph again, silently.
Afterward, the teacher directs a discussion, with the whole group
participating. The teacher reminds the students to look at the ideas that
precede and follow the missing words, as well as those that may appear
at the beginning, middle, or end of the paragraph. Then the teacher asks
them to say aloud possible words for each deletion. The teacher writes
these words near the corresponding space on his copy of the passage. She
can encourage the students to say the word without any fear of being
important aspect of the instruction, as it involves an analysis of the
structure of the language and helps the teacher gather information about
the students’ need.
6. The teacher gives some clues to help the students find the correct, or
acceptable, words. Here, the teacher has an excellent opportunity to
provide information about syntactic and semantic clues (knowledge of
the language works) that will help the students discover the missing
words.
7. If, after doing the previous step there are still some doubtful choices; the
teacher can give the first letter of the correct word.
8. After the class has finished the first paragraph, the teacher asks one
student to read it aloud to see whether it makes sense.
9. The teacher shows the class the original paragraph, using an overhead
projector (if available), and tells the students to compare it with the one
they have just completed. This will give them a sense of achievement in
constructing the writer’s message.
10. In order to provide variety, the teacher divides the class into small groups
(three or four students each), and tells them to read the next paragraph
and to suggest possible words for each blank. The teacher should
emphasize that they must work cooperatively in each group and let all the
group members give their answers. But, she must also encourage them to
give reasons for their choices. If the teacher finds that some groups are
handouts containing the initial letters of the missing words. (These, of
course, must be prepared before class.) Or, in place of this, the teacher
may dictate these initials and have the students write them on their copies
of the passage. In this way, the teacher can prevent frustration and
boredom from coming into the activity (Yamashita2003).
11. While the students are working in groups, the teacher should interact
with each group and work as a facilitator.
12. Then the teacher can ask each group to report their findings, along with
reasons. The teacher must be ready to clarify any doubts.
13. Finally, the teacher can again show the class the original passage and
compare it with the students’ answers.
E. Basic Assumption
Based on the explanation above, it can be said that cloze procedure
encourages the learner to link new information with previously learned
material (prior knowledge) and to initiate question to be asked. Moreover,
activities using cloze procedure can help learner develop reading and writing
skills such as sequencing and spelling of the word.
By applying cloze procedure in reading activities, the students can
think critically on the content of the text. It can stimulate their motivation and
interest to read the text. Hopefully, by applying cloze procedure technique,
