iii
READING STRATEGIES USED BY
LITERARY THEORY AND APPLICATION STUDENTS
THESIS
Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of
Sarjana Pendidikan
Fatiah Laily Raharjanti 112006036
ENGLISH DEPARTMENT
FACULTY OF LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE SATYA WACANA CHRISTIAN UNIVERSITY
i
READING STRATEGIES USED BY
LITERARY THEORY AND APPLICATION STUDENTS
THESIS
Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of
Sarjana Pendidikan
Fatiah Laily Raharjanti 112006036
ENGLISH DEPARTMENT
FACULTY OF LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE SATYA WACANA CHRISTIAN UNIVERSITY
ii
COPYRIGHT STATEMENT
This thesis contains no such material as has been submitted for examination in any course or accepted for the fulfillment of any degree or diploma in any univer-sity. To the best of my knowledge and my belief, this contains no material pre-viously published or written by any other person except where due reference is made in the text.
Copyright@ 2013. Fatiah Laily Raharjanti and Maria Ch. Eko Setyarini., S.S., M.Hum
All rights reserved. No part of this thesis may be reproduced by any means with-out the permission of at least one of the copyright owners or the English Depart-ment, Faculty of Language and Literature, Satya Wacana University, Salatiga.
1
READING STRATEGIES USED BY
LITERARY THEORY AND APPLICATION STUDENTS
Fatiah Laily Raharjanti (112006036)
Abstract
Reading is an important skill for English Department of Satya Wacana Christian University students. Many subjects in this department require students to read, but many students dislike reading because often they do not understand the text. The problem, actually, is not the students’ inability in reading but their lack of interest. The aim of this study was to examine students’ reading strategies used when they read academic texts, especially Literary Theory and Application (LTA) reading texts. This study used quantitative as well as qualitative method. I used a questionnaire that was distributed to 47 students who already taken LTA class. The results showed that student used three kinds of reading strategies: cog-nitive, metacogcog-nitive, and compensating reading strategies. There were students who used one single reading strategy like metacognitive or compensating reading strategies only, but there were also students who combined two reading strategies; cognitive and metacognitive reading strategies, metacognitive and compensating reading strategies, or metacognitive and compensating reading strategies, or com-bine those three reading strategies, cognitive, metacognitive, and compensating reading strategies, altogether. In addition to that, compensating reading strategies became the most frequent reading strategy used by LTA students. There were sev-en compsev-ensating reading strategies revealed in this study and high-lighting ap-peared as the most frequent reading strategy being used
Keywords: reading strategies, LTA students
INTRODUCTION
Along with writing and reasoning, reading is one of the most important
activities in which students have to engage, especially for those who learn
lan-guage. One of many problems students face in reading nowadays is not their
ina-bility to read but their lack of interest, indifference or rejection of reading. When
reading a text, learners will stop reading when they find difficult words.
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reading and they look it up in the dictionary, which is time consuming. In
order to understand a text, students need to know some strategies for reading. In
this study, I would like to explore students’ reading strategies in their English
lan-guage learning.
As an English Department student, I have to take several elective classes
as the study requirement. The elective classes provided are divided into three big
major, they are linguistics, teaching and education, and literature. One of literature
subject I took as an elective subject is Literary Theory and Application (LTA).
Literary Theory and Application is a class which requires students to read a lot.
Besides, students have to deal with text analyze and interpretation in reading the
text since most of the text is about theory or literary works. I have to read a lot of
English text about theory in literature. For me myself, it means that I have to deal
with the language and the length of the text to understand. My lecturer said that
we did not have to understand the whole thing from the text but at least we
showed our effort by reading and understanding several things from the text so
that she asked us to make notes or summary to help us dealing with the text in
Li-terary Theory and Application. Rarely could I understand the text in one time
reading. I have to re-read the text, even for more than two times if I found it was
too difficult to understand and to be critical toward the text. The obstacle of the
circumstances increases my curiosity whether my friends also have the similar
problems to mine or not and what they do to face the problems if they have.
The obstacles coming to the students taking LTA course motivated me. I
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Every week, students had to read a paper about one literary theory and on the
fol-lowing week, students would read a piece of literary work while applying theory
that they have learned on the previous week. Both the literary theory paper and the
literary work consisted more than 7 pages, which added the difficulty of the
course. I myself sometimes overwhelmed by the demand of the course but my
great interest in literature made me stick to every meeting of this course. Perhaps,
not all students had a great interest enrolling this course. They might enroll this
class since this was the only elective class remained in the SIASAT or they have
to take this class because it is the pre-requisite of the final paper project. There
were various motives of students taking this class, but I am sure that those who
enroll this course find obstacles in their study. That is why I eager to find out what
problems occur in their study and how they cope with their problems.
A current study about reading strategies conducted by Sari (2011)
be-comes one of my concerns. In her research, she investigated about reading
strate-gies used by several reading classes of English Department in Satya Wacana
Christian University. The results of this study showed that, in general the students
are moderately active strategy users when reading in English, with
problem-solving strategies used most frequency. Such findings suggest that the students
have the basic tools to reach a high level of reading proficiency in English. Poole
as cited in Sari (2011) found that 147 college students reported using problem
solving strategies with high frequency support the students’ reading
comprehen-sion. The results of Sari and Poole’s researches are similar to the findings of the
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language learners using problem solving strategies with high frequency and global
and support strategies with moderate frequency. Those studies were investigating
L2 learners’ reading strategies in reading classes but none of them investigated
reading strategies in literature class.
Since there are not many studies done to investigate reading strategies in
literature class, I was motivated to conduct this research. My motivation also
came from my own experience having problems reading in LTA class. My
re-search question is “What kind of reading strategies used by LTA students” and I
investigated the problems faced by students in reading LTA text so this research
will lead to what kind of strategies used to cope with obstacles in reading LTA
texts.
It is hoped that the results of this study can be beneficial to language
learners and reading instructors in ESL/EFL contexts. Firstly, English Department
students of SWCU who are going to conduct research on the same field of mine
and secondly for students who are going to take Literary Theory and Application
class so that they can cope the problem in reading the material. Besides, the
strat-egies used by LTA students may also help students of other courses in Faculty of
Language and Literature of Satya Wacana Christian University which require
5 REVIEW OF LITERATURE
Literary Theory and Application Course
Literary Theory and Application (LTA) is an elective class that explores
various literary theories, or lenses (tools) of reading and interpreting literature.
Literary theory is the body of ideas and methods used in reading and
understand-ing literature. Literary theory does not refer to one true meanunderstand-ing of a work of
lite-rature, but rather, theories that help to reveal what literature can mean. In this
course, students have to read pieces from broader school theory. The students will
use literary theory to more thoroughly understand literature.
Reading
Farbairn (2001) revealed that reading is an important way in which we
gain information about the world. Students must read in order to become and
re-main aware of their subject, to keep their knowledge and understanding up to date,
and to check their work and ideas and research against those of their peers. This
active process of understanding print and graphic texts usually called as a thinking
process. Effective readers know that when they read, what they read is supposed
to make sense. They monitor their understanding, and when they lose the meaning
of what they are reading, they often unconsciously select and use a reading
strate-gy (such as rereading or asking questions) that will help them reconnect with the
meaning of the text. Reading skills and strategies can be taught explicitly while
students are learning subject-specific content through authentic reading tasks.
Since this research was in classroom context, the topic was closely
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by Grabe (1991) in Sari (2011): reading to search for information (scanning and
skimming); reading for quick understanding (skimming); reading to learn; reading
to integrate information; reading to evaluate, critique, and use information; and
reading for general comprehension (in many cases, reading for interest or reading
to entertain).
Reading Strategies
A strategy is an individual's comprehension approach to a task. It
in-cludes how a person thinks and acts when planning and evaluating his or her study
behavior. Successful language learners know how to use such reading strategies
efficiently. Oxford in Hertiyani (2007) stated that strategies which can be divided
into two major classes, direct and indirect strategies. Direct strategies consist of
memory strategies, cognitive strategies, and compensation strategies, while
indi-rect strategies consist of affective strategies, metacognitive strategies, and social
strategies. Reading skill and reading strategies are related but have different
defi-nitions. Robb in Setiadi (2011) explained the distinction of reading skills and
reading strategies; “Reading skills are as set of helpful tools which are practiced
by students in improving their comprehension in reading” (p.9). The readers can
be considered into strategic readers when the readers can use the reading skills
independently, they can understand how the skill work and apply to the new
read-ing materials. By applyread-ing the strategies, many researchers have interest in
inves-tigating how the reader use the strategies related to effective reading
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According to Simangungsong (2003) cited in Hertiyani (2007), there are
two definitions of reading strategies. First, reading strategies are a definite way
taken by readers to make reading comprehensible, smoothly, easily, and
enjoya-ble. Second, reading strategy is also explained as the way the students read, how
they plan to read the various texts, habit of reading and also their reading
frequen-cy.
In his study of reading strategies in ESL and EFL contexts, Park (2010)
explained some factors which may influence in strategy use and reading
compre-hension. The first factor is ESL reader might also have different characteristics
from EFL readers in strategy use and reading comprehension. He also reported
that Japanese college students in an ESL context showed a different pattern and
frequency of strategy use from Japanese EFL college students. The second factor
is the grade level may play a part in strategy use and reading comprehension. The
learners from the lower grade level can be less proficient, cognitively less
devel-oped and still in the process of developing their reading skills than the learners of
the higher grade level. The third factor is the nationality/ethnicity. From a
cross-cultural perspective, researchers have been also interested in studying reading
strategies use and reading comprehension. Tailefer as cited in Park (2010)
re-ported that national origin influences both reading comprehension and strategy
use.
Reading strategies are of interest for what they reveal about the way
readers manage their interaction with written text and how these strategies are
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learners use a variety of strategies to assist them with the acquisition, storage, and
retrieval of information (Rigney, 1978). In the context of second language
learn-ing, a distinction can be made between strategies that make learning more
effec-tive, versus strategies that improve comprehension.
The purposes of reading strategies are to have general knowledge, get a
specific detail, find the main idea or theme, learn, remember, delight, summarize,
and do research (Hyland, 1990). Zare-ee (2007) stated that linguists (for example:
Ellis, 1994) have commented on the lack of consensus about the definition of the
term ‘reading strategies’. This diversity is largely due to the way the term has
been used in different contexts such as first, second or foreign language learning.
Keep in mind that not all readers use the same strategies while reading. Many
stu-dies have been conducted to reveal kinds of reading strategies that can enhance
reading skill. That is why Anderson as cited in Anderson (1999) had developed a
kind of “Reading Strategy Checklist”. It contains 24 common reading strategies
that were classified into three different groups: cognitive reading strategies
(think-ing), metacognitive reading strategies (thinking about your thinking/plann(think-ing),
and compensating reading strategies.
Another researcher, Byrnes (1988), revealed that reading strategies can
help learners to read more quickly and effectively by previewing, predicting,
skimming and scanning, guessing from context, and paraphrasing. While Abita in
Hertiyani (2007) mentioned that reading strategies are set into 18 specific
strate-gies; activating prior knowledge, clarifying, context clues, drawing conclusion,
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rereading, restating, setting a purpose, scanning/skimming, summarizing,
survey-ing, think aloud, and visualizing.
Cognitive
Cognitive strategies are one type of learning strategy that learners use in
order to learn more successfully. These include repetition, organizing new
lan-guage, summarizing meaning, guessing meaning from context, using imagery for
memorization. All of these strategies involve deliberate manipulation of language
to improve learning (British Council, 2013). Sabuncuoglu (2010) stated that it
enables the learner to understand and produce new language. Similarly, English
asserted that cognitive strategies help learner to identify, change and manipulate
the language.
Previous study held by Sabuncuoglu (2010) suggested that cognitive strategies
involve interacting with learning tasks, manipulating materials mentally or
physi-cally, or applying a specific technique to the learning task such as writing down
key words or concepts to assist one’s performance in the learning task (
note-taking), making a written summary of language and information presented in the
learning task (summarization), using mental or actual pictures or visuals to
represent information (imagery), using a meaningful context to make the learner
easier remembering new word (placing new words into a context), physically
act-ing out a new expression, or relatact-ing a new expression to physical feelact-ings (using
physical response or sensation), and using available clues provided by the text to
10 Metacognitive
Metacognition is defined as "thinking about thinking" (Anderson, 2002,
p. 23). Oxford (1990) in Sari (2011) believes that metacognitive strategies
"pro-vide a way for learners to coordinate their own learning process" (p. 136).
Metacognition refers to the knowledge and control that we have over our cogni-tive processes. As far as it is concerned with reading, it is common to talk about metacognitive awareness (what we know) and metacognitive regulation or con-trol (knowing when, where, and how to use strategies, that is, what we can do). As a whole, metacognitive involves awareness and control of planning, monitor-ing, repairmonitor-ing, revismonitor-ing, summarizmonitor-ing, and evaluating. Research on the relation-ship between metacognition and reading comprehension has progressed through several different stages. During the early stages, research focused on the investi-gation of the relationship between metacognition and reading comprehension from the developmental perspective.
(Sari, 2011, p.3)
According to Grabe (2009), reading is an essential skill and probably the
most important skill for second language learners to master in academic contexts.
Since reading comprehension has been distinctively important both in first and
second/foreign languages, reading strategies are of great interest in the field of
reading research. Reading research has also shed light on metacognitive
aware-ness of reading strategies, perception of strategies, and strategy training and use in
reading comprehension. Readers’ use of reading strategies is informed by their
metacognitive awareness of the strategies and how these strategies can be
max-imized for optimal effects in solving comprehension problems (Cohen, 2007 and
Hudson, 2007 in Sari, 2011).
Compensating
Compensating reading strategies, which also known as compensatory or
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their language knowledge or help the learner make up for missing knowledge
(Sa-buncuoglu, 2010). Reis (2002) defined compensation strategies to include study
strategies, cognitive strategies (also called learning strategies), compensatory
sup-ports (e.g. tape recorders and computer word processing programs), and
environ-mental accommodations (e.g. extended test time, less distracting test-taking
set-ting). English added that compensation strategies with regard to reading strategies
should include guessing lexical meaning from the text and making inferences.
Written expression also supported compensating reading strategies. Reis
(2002) stated that it helped students in the development of skills such as the
or-ganization of written assignments, proofreading, and sentence structure and
me-chanics. Learning specialist provided modeling and practice in paraphrasing,
hig-hlighting the text, identifying main ideas and supporting details and training in a
technique known as SQ3R (Survey, Question, Read, Recite, Review). This
strate-gy provides a reading format that promotes an organized approach to absorb
writ-ten information (Bragstad & Stumpf, 1987)
THE STUDY
This study primarily used mixed methods that combine quantitative and
qualitative approaches. According to Creswell (2003) mixed methods research is a
research design (or methodology) in which the researcher collects, analyzes, and
mixes (integrates or connects) both quantitative and qualitative data in a single
study or a multiphase program of inquiry. Another researcher, Chen in Johnson,
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integration of quantitative and qualitative methods in a single study for purposes
of obtaining a fuller picture and deeper understanding of a phenomenon. Mixed
methods can be integrated in such a way that qualitative and quantitative methods
retain their original structures and procedures (pure form mixed methods).
Alter-natively, these two methods can be adapted, altered, or synthesized to fit the
re-search and cost situations of the study (modified form mixed methods).
Context of the study
The setting of the study was English Department – English Education
Major of Satya Wacana Christian University which is located on Diponegoro
street number 67-69, Salatiga, Central Java. English Department – English
Educa-tion Major is a department that prepares its students to be well-qualified English
teacher. All courses in this faculty are grouped into three major, education,
lin-guistic, and literature. One elective course which should be taken by students who
want to write about literature major is Literary Theory and Application. This
course provides theory that will help students who are going to write literary
The-sis, but any students who are interested in literature but not going to write about
literary Thesis may also enroll the class. Students are required to read a lot in this
class, therefore, the researcher can identify reading strategies that are used in
read-ing Literary Theory and Application material.
Participants
The participants involved in this study were 50 students from two
dif-ferent Literary and Theory classes.
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The data of this research was collected through an open-ended
ques-tionnaire. Students would answer the questions with “yes” or “no” followed by a
brief explanation. The questionnaire was divided into three sections. The first
sec-tion had 11 quessec-tions that cope 9 strategies belong to cognitive reading strategies.
The strategies were guessing from context, using text-structures, looking up words
in the dictionary, skipping a word, identifying main idea, summarizing, forming
questions, mind-mapping, using visual graphic and graphic organizer. The
second section had 12 questions related 11 specific strategies belong to
metacog-nitive reading strategies. The strategies were having reading purpose, setting
goal, checking factual statement, activating prior knowledge, reading slowly,
re-reading the prior sentence, restating ideas, making vocabulary list, working with
friends, practicing reading, and self evaluation. While, the last section contained
7 questions that cope 7 strategies belong to compensating reading strategies. The
strategies were note-taking, remembering what you already know, checking the
reliability of text material, information visualization, reviewing key ideas and
de-tails, and high-lighting.
Procedure of Data Collection
The questionnaire was administered to 50 students who already taken
Literary Theory and Application course at end of third semester 2012 – 2013 to
make sure that students were not burdened by their final project and tasks
any-more. From 50 questionnaires I administered to 50 students, only 47 were back to
me.
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There were 30 questions in the questionnaire and it is divided into
three sections; 11 questions that cope 9 specific strategies on cognitive reading
strategies, 12 questions that cope 10 specific strategies on metacognitive reading
strategies, and 7 questions that cope 7 specific compensating reading strategies. I
created a standard to decide whether a student used only single strategy among
cognitive, metacognitive, and compensating reading strategy or combine between
those three strategies. The standard for each section was different but had similar
a criteria, a student had to reach more than half number of expected answers in
each section. Students would be considered using cognitive reading strategy if
they had minimum 6 “yes” answers in the first section. While, they would be
con-sidered using metacognitive reading strategy if they had minimum 7 “yes”
an-swers in the second section, and they were considered using compensating reading
strategy if they had minimum 4 “yes” answers in the last section.
FINDING AND DISCUSSION
The questionnaire used in this research had three sections; the first
sec-tion had 11 quessec-tions related to cognitive reading strategies, the second secsec-tion
had 12 questions related to metacognitive reading strategies, and the third section
had 7 questions about related to reading strategies. In the first section, a student
would be considered as a cognitive reading strategies user if they had minimum 6
“yes” answer, while in the second section, a student would be considered as a
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they would be considered using compensating reading strategies if in the third
16 Table 1. Kind of strategies used by LTA students
Student
Strategies Cognitive Metacognitive Compensating
1 8 9 7 Cog Met Comp
17
Table 2.The number of reading strategies used by LTA students
STUDENT STRATEGIES NUMBER OF USED
TYPE OF READING STRATEGIES
COGNITIVE METACOGNITIVE COMPENSATING
Student 1 3
Here we can see that there were 30 out of 47 students used cognitive reading
strat-egy, while metacognitive reading strategy was used by 26 out of 47 students, and
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With regard to the research question (i.e., “What kind of reading
strate-gies used by LTA students?”), I broke down cognitive, metacognitive, and
com-pensating reading strategies into more specific strategies. Each specific strategy
had the maximum frequency up to 47 points since the number of respondent in
this research was 47 students and might differ to each specific strategy. E.g. the
frequency of skipping a word strategy that belongs to cognitive reading strategy
was 40 points means there were 40 out of 47 students used skipping a word
strat-egy.Here I display the frequency of each specific reading strategy used by LTA
students on Table 3.
Table 3. The frequency of specific reading strategies used by LTA students
NO STRATEGIES READING SPECIFIC READING STRATEGIES FREQUENCY
1 Cognitive Skipping a word 40
2 Forming questions 40
3 Guessing from context 34 4 Identifying main idea 34 5 Using visual graphic and graphic-organizer 26
6 Summarizing 23
7 Mind-mapping 23
8 Looking-up words in the dictionary 18 9 Using text-structures awareness 12 10 Metacognitive Activating prior knowledge 38 11 Re-reading prior sentence 36 21 Compensating High-lighting 44 22 Remembering what you already know 37 23 Information visualization 37 24 Relying on background knowledge 36
25 Note-taking 35
19 Cognitive Reading Strategies
In this research, there are 9 specific cognitive reading strategies that are
used by Literary Theory and Application students. They are guessing from
con-text, using text-structure awareness, looking-up words in the dictionary, skipping
a word, identifying main idea, summarizing, forming questions, mind-mapping,
and using-visual graphic and graphic organizer. I will explain further about 4
specific strategies: skipping a word, forming questions, guessing from context, and
identifying main idea since those strategies are mostly used cognitive reading
strategies in this research.
Skipping a word
One of many ways to deal with unknown words is finding the word
meaning from the context. When students found an unknown or difficult word,
they would skip the word and continue reading the text while trying to find the
word meaning from the context. Student 2 usually found word meaning by linking
the word with the previous or next word and sometimes re-reading the sentence.
Student 44 also has similar opinion to Student 2,
Exerpt1
“Usually I will read the whole text first, and try to guess the meaning of the word, and I will give a mark on that word, and after I finish reading the text, if I think that word is an “important” word I will use dictionary to find the meaning, but if it is not that important, I won’t use my dictionary”.
(Student 44)
There are 40 students who usually used ‘skipping a word’ reading strategy. I
re-vealed that most of LTA students preferred to find word meaning from the context
20 Forming questions
Students might have questions popped-up in their mind while reading
and the questions could be various. By reading the text, students expected to get
the answers of their questions. Sometimes, students had questions that the answers
could not be found in the text. Those unsolvable questions could be a good start
for a discussion in the class. Or, if the students were really curious about it, they
would find another resource (book, article, or journal) to get the answer. 40
stu-dents out of 47 stustu-dents usually had questions in their mind when to keep their
attention the reading material they have. Perhaps, this reading strategy can help
students to gain their critical thinking. They were trained to question and triggered
to find the answers. Student 38 admitted that questioning while reading is one way
to keep her progress in reading.
Exerpt 2
“It is important to find the answer when you read something and have question about it. Because sometimes I find myself get disappointed when I can’t find the answer of my question”.
(Student 38)
Guessing from context
In LTA class, 34 students out of 47 students predicted the content of
an upcoming passage or section since they read at the initial of the text. When
students found that the text is interesting, they would instantly predict the content
of the next passage, but when they found that the text was less interesting or quite
difficult, they continued reading without predicting what the whole text was about
read-21
ing the passage without predicting the upcoming section to enjoy the ‘surprise’ of
the upcoming section (Student 2)
Exerpt 3
“…when I found that the text is interesting, I will predict the content of next chap-ter, but when the text is difficult to be understood, I just read the text and try to understand the text without predict what the next text about”.
(Student 44)
“…usually I just read it and try to enjoy the storyline without guessing what might come after this scene or chapter so that I can get the surprise ‘bite’”.
(Student 2)
Identifying main idea
Identifying main idea, which is also familiar as scanning, can help
stu-dents to get the main point of the text and wholly understand it. Student 29 stated
that identifying main idea could help her understanding the coherence of the
cohe-rence of the text, while Student 22 added that the main idea explain the whole
content of the text, so students could understand the text easily and they could
save their time because they did not need to read all sentence.
Exerpt 4
“…that helps me to summarize and find the main point of the text where I can use to link back the subject, especially when facing difficulties and confusion of un-derstanding the coherence”.
(Student 29)
Metacognitive Reading Strategies
There are 11 specific metacognitive reading strategies in this research:
having reading purpose, setting goal, checking factual statement, activating prior
knowledge, reading slowly, re-reading the prior sentence, restating ideas, making
22
specific strategies; activating prior knowledge, re-reading prior sentence, reading
slowly, and practicing reading; as the most common metacognitive strategies used
by LTA students will be explain further.
Activating prior knowledge
Prior knowledge here means student’s knowledge in their first
lan-guage. All of LTA students who became my respondent are Indonesian and most
of them are Javanese, so I assumed that their first language could be bahasa
Indo-nesia or Javanese language only or combination of both language. The researcher
believed that students already had knowledge in their L1 and sometimes they used
it in reading LTA material.
Exerpt 5
“…I sometimes compared between the culture which was described in the text and Indonesian culture or Javanese culture (as my first language)
(Student 23) “… in feminist chapter, I link the role of women in Kartini era with the theory…”
(Student 36)
Sometimes students found that LTA material is new for them. They
did not have any idea about it then they linked it with what they already know
even though it was in their first language. I conclude that their knowledge in L1
could help them when they meet difficulties in understanding reading text. That is
why 38 out of 47 students used this strategy in reading LTA material.
Re-reading the prior sentence
LTA reading material is condensed reading text. They can be written in a
23
Sometimes students could not understand the content in one time reading. They
need to re-read the passage to find the relationship among ideas on it. They would
go back and forth or read the whole text for more than one time. 36 out of 47
stu-dents found that re-reading the prior sentence could help them understand the
ma-terial better.
Exerpt 6
“…If necessary, I would repeat the difficult parts twice or three times just to make sure that I really get the point...”
(Student 29)
“I usually read the whole text first, and give mark to the part that difficult, and after I read the whole text, I will go to that part and read it again, and again.”
(Student 44)
Reading slowly
Students liked to read LTA material fast to save their time, however they
slow down their reading when they find difficulties in understanding the text. 29
out of 47 students admitted that slowing down their reading could help them
get-ting the idea of the text better.
Exerpt 7
“…particularly when the text was difficult to understand. So I had to read it slow-ly and carefulslow-ly to understand it well.”
(Student 23) “…it was really hard to focus on the text so I must read slowly and carefully even repeated in reading the text.”
(Student 34)
Practicing reading
Practicing reading here means students applied reading strategies they
know-24
ledge, high-lighting, etc, to other text related to LTA material or other text with
different genre. There are 28 out of 47 students who practiced their reading
strate-gies. Perhaps practicing reading can help students to keep their reading progress
steady.
Exerpt 8
“What kind of practice? Doing the exercise related to the text? If so, yes. It was to evaluate my understanding of the text.”
(Student 23)
“…the theories that I get in LTA is very valuable that should never be wasted. I used them in analyzing literacy especially for my thesis. The different fields of theories broaden my horizon and not using it means forgetting them.”
(Student 29) “…the theories is hard to understand, so I have to read the PPT that I downloaded, the summary, to help me in figuring out the text and taking notes.”
(Student 36)
Compensating Reading Strategies
I revealed 7 specific compensating reading strategies in this research:
relying on background knowledge, note-taking, remembering what you already
know, checking material’s reliability, information visualization, reviewing key
ideas and details, and high-lighting, but I will only explain 3 specific strategies
that have highest frequency among them, high-lighting, remembering what you
already know, and information visualization.
High-lighting
In compensating reading strategies, lighting is not only
high-lighting the key word or difficult word but it can also be circling or underlining
the word. I revealed that 44 out of 47 students used high-lighting strategy in
atten-25
tion to the part being high-lighted, whether it is colored, circled, or underlined.
Student could find the important part faster and easier when they re-read the
pas-sage.
Exerpt 9
“…I underline and circle information to help me select the important informa-tion.”
(Student 5)
“…I make three different categories of highlighting. Red for important informa-tion, blue for difficult words and circle for key ideas or details.”
(Student 29)
Remembering what you already know
In this research, I found that students also memorizing things that they
got from the reading text. Student 29 stated that memorizing information from the
text is one way to keep the information with them (Exerpt 10) I assumed that
me-morizing went well with other strategies like note taking and summarizing. It
be-nefited students if they combined those strategies altogether. While taking notes
or summarize the passage, they also memorized important things that they could
use for another time, for example when they work with their thesis later. Besides,
students memorizing some part of the passage to develop better comprehension
toward the text (Exerpt 11)
Exerpt 10
“…memorizing is always easier with all the note takings and summary.”
(Student 29) Exerpt 11
“From the manner how to understand the text such as annotation, take notes, etc is yes but what the text about sometimes yes sometimes no.”
26 Information visualization
Information visualization can happen in students’ mind or in paper by drawing it,
whether it is in the form of mind map of picture. In this research, students
admit-ted that when they read Literary Theory and Application they would automatically
visualized information in their mind (Exerpt 12). There are also students who
pre-ferred to visualize the information in a form of mind map or drawing. They stated
that visual things worked better on them (Exerpt 13). There are 37 out of 47
stu-dents stated that visualizing information in their mind or in drawing form could
help them in understanding the text. Even, some student revealed that the drawing
form or mind map gave more help than only in mind visualization.
Exerpt 12
“… I usually did it. It feels like it automatically happen when I read something.” (Student 38) Exerpt 13
“…I prefer to draw it or visualize it directly on the reading.”
(Student 22)
Out of three kinds of reading strategies used by LTA students,
compen-sating reading strategies are the most frequent reading strategies being used.
Among 7 specific strategies of compensating reading strategies, high-lighting
ap-peared as the most frequent reading strategies used by LTA students. This strategy
could be very practical and helpful so that almost all of the students in LTA class
used it. In my opinion, high-lighting which means coloring, underlining, circling,
or giving mark to the important of the text, could be a fun activity. Perhaps,
stu-dents liked to have their handout more colorful and more interesting with the
be-27
cause of the colorful handout and could understand the material more since the
important point already high-lighted.
CONCLUSION
The purpose of this study was to identify reading strategies used by
Eng-lish Department of Satya Wacana Christian University student in reading Literary
Theory and Application material. The result of this study showed that, in general
LTA students used compensating reading strategies. Specific strategies of
com-pensating reading strategies such as high-lighting, remembering what you already
know, information visualization, relying on background knowledge, note-taking,
reviewing key ideas and details, and checking the reliability of text material could
cover students’ problem in reading LTA material. However, students not only
used one single strategy in reading LTA material. They might used combine two
or all three reading strategies altogether to understand the material better.
Despite the interesting findings, the research has certain limitations; first
the questionnaire used in this study consists of only 30 questions. This amount is
obviously not enough to cover all strategies used by students, therefore, a wider
variety of assessment method is recommended in future studies e.g. interview,
ob-servation, verbal report, and diaries. Next, in this study, only 47 students were
in-volved. Perhaps this little number of students influences the results. In the future
study, more classes can be involved so that more students can finish the
28
While high-lighting is the mostly used reading strategy in LTA, not all
students knew how to high-light correctly. The aim of high-lighting is to point out
information that is important to the reader. It can be key word or term, difficult
words, opinion or fact that the reader agree, etc. Teacher can help students
famili-ar to this strategy by training them how to high-light important point in the
read-ing text. Beside another strategies revealed in this study can also be beneficial for
the students if the teacher would like to introduce and familiarize those strategies
to the class. Teacher does not need to give theory about reading strategies to the
students, rather teacher applies the strategy to the reading material.
I found out that this study can be useful not only for LTA students but all
English Department students since most all of courses in English Department
re-quire reading. Strategies revealed in this study, cognitive, metacognitive, and
compensating reading strategies can be applied to other courses that require
read-ing. Besides being used for academic purposes, reading strategies appeared in this
study can also be used in non-academic purposes like when they read novel or
newspaper, or other book. In addition to what I explained before, this study is
hoped to give insight for English Department students who are working with their
29 Acknowledgements
I would like to express my gratitude to Allah S.W.T who gave many
bounties to me to finish this thesis. I submit my highest appreciation to my thesis
advisor, M. Ch. Eko Setyarini., S.S., M.Hum, whose expertise, understanding,
pa-tience, and her assistance helped me much in writing this thesis. Without her
guidance, I would never have been able to finish my thesis, despite her extremely
busy schedule. I also express my gratitude to my second reader Rindang
Widinin-grum, S.S, M.Hum who helped me in completing this thesis. Also, I would like to
thank the participants for their ready participation in this study for assistance in
data collection, I owe you my eternal gratitude.
Special thank goes out to my family: Bapak, Ibu, Mas Edo, Mbak Tanti,
and Radit. Your endless prayer and support bring out my best for this final paper
and every second of my life, I love you so much. Last but not least, I would also
express my gratitude to my friends: Adis, Cik Onik, Nandi, Hendrata, Dwi, Adi,
Ginan, Melisa, Debi, Janti, Prima, and others that I cannot mention one by one,
for they exist to be my besties. Thanks a lot for your enormous support and
30 REFERENCES
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2013, from TESOL International Association:
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32
Appendix
QUESTIONNAIRE
READING STRATEGIES USED BY
LITERARY THEORY AND APPLICATION (LTA) STUDENTS
Name : ………..
Student Number : ………..
The purpose of this survey is to collect information about the various strategies you use in reading. Please refer to you experience when you read Literary Theory and Application material. Please explain your answer briefly.
1. Do you predict the content of an upcoming passage or section of the text? ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________
2. Do you analyze the theme, style, and the transition words in the text?
______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________
3. Do you concentrate on grammar to help you understand the text?
33
______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________
5. Do you guess the meaning of unknown words from the context?
______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________
6. Do you find the main idea of the text to understand the whole text?
______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________
7. Do you summarize what you read to reflect on important information in the text?
______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________
8. Do you expect to get the answers of your questions by reading the text? ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________
9. Do you make a kind of map/drawing to understand the ideas in the text? ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________
34
12. Do set targets when you read?
______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________
13. Do you set goals to help yourself improve areas that are important to you? ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________
14. Do you distinguish between opinions and facts in the text?
______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________
15. Do you think about what you already know to help you understand what you read?
35
16. Do you link what you know in first language with what you learned from the text?
______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________
17. Do you read slowly and carefully to make sure that you understand the text? ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________
18. Do you go back and forth in reading the text to find relationship among ideas on it?
______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________
19. Do you paraphrase (restating ideas in your own words) to better understand what you read?
______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________
20. Do you make lists of relevant vocabulary to prepare for new reading?
______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________
21. Do you work with your classmates to develop your reading skills?
36
22. Do you practice what you already know to keep your progress steady? ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________
23. Do you evaluate what you have learned and how well you are doing to help you focus on your reading?
______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________
24. Do you rely on what you already know to improve your reading comprehen-sion?
______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________
25. Do you take notes while you are reading?
______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________
26. Do you try to remember what you understand from a reading to develop bet-ter comprehension skills?
______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________
37
______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________
28. Do you try to picture or visualize information in your mind to remember and understand your reading?
______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________
29. Do you review key ideas and details to remember?
______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________
30. Do you underline or circle information in the text to help you remember it? ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________
