CHAPTER II
THEORETICAL REVIEW
A. Reading
1. Definition of Reading
Learning English is not something new for university students. They often speak and write. In English, there are four skill be mastered by students: reading, writing, speaking, and listening.
Reading is an activity in which readers respond to and make sense of a text being read connected to their prior knowledge (Spratt, Pulverness, and William: 2005: 21). The activity is done by the readers as they want to get information and knowledge from the text. In the process of getting information and knowledge, the readers try to connect what they read in the form of written language to what they have already known about the text. Making sense of a text is done by understanding meaning of words, sentences, and even a text.
Grabe (2009: 15) states that “Reading is the strategic process in that a
number of the skills and processes used in reading call for effort on the part of the reader to anticipate text information, selecting key information, organize and mentally summarize information, monitor comprehension, repair comprehension breakdowns, and match comprehension output to the reader goals.”
From the statements above, it can be concluded that reading is an exercise dominate by eyes and brain to get message that is conveyed by the writer in written symbols.
2. There are some Aims of reading.
Reading is an activity that can be done in every time and wherever it is. There are many purposes of reading in our daily life. That purposes are used for helping understand the content of a text. Reader use their own ways to get their purposes in reading. Some of them read very slowly and carefully when reading for studying or setting information such as news, science or same line. Meanwhile, they will read either quickly or slowly based on the way they like or feel in reading for pleasure or for pure recreation and enjoyment.
Anderson as cited in Nunan (2003 :74) said that there are seven aims or reading. They are as follow:
a. Reading for details and facts
b. Reading for main ideas
Reading for main ideas is reading to get the topic, the case of the story, something which is learned or experienced, summarize something that has been done by the figure.
c. Reading for squence or organization
Reading for squence or organization is reading to understand the parts of the story from the beginning until the end of the story.
d. Reading for inference
Reading for inference is reading to understand the figure do something or the author‟s mean of the passage.
e. Reading for classifying
Reading for classifying is reading to understand something unusual, to find something that is it fact or not.
f. Reading for evaluating
Reading for evaluating is reading to evaluate to know the figure is success or not, whether we want to imitate what is done by the figure in the story.
g. Reading for comparing of contrast
Reading to compare is reading to know the differences or similarities of two things outside the text.
be concluded that the aims of reading are to know the content of the text. In other word, comprehension is the main aim of reading.
3. There are some proccess of Reading Comprehension.
As it is mentioned above, reading comprehension is the process of getting knowledge and information by using comprehension skills connected with the prior knowledge of the reader. Understanding the process of reading is closely related to the way how the readers construct meaning from a text. The ways of constructing meaning may be vary based on the readers‟ reference. According to Hudson (2007: 33-57) and
Brown (2001: 298-299), there are three types of reading processes, they are as follow:
a. Bottom-up processing
Bottom-up processing views the process of reading as phonemic units. The readers construct meanings by scanning from letters to letters. It is continued by recognizing the words from one to another. The process is furthered by associating among phrases, clauses, and sentences. Finally, it is processed into phonemic units representing lexical meaning and attains some comprehension of the text. This process mainly focuses in a linier processing which allows the readers‟ ability in recognizing words into
mental lexicon. It concerns more in the way the readers read a text than that of comprehend it.
In top-down processing, the readers involve their knowledge of syntax and semantic to create meaning of a text (Goodman cited in Hudson, 2007: 37). On the beginning of the process, the readers make some prediction of the text. It is followed by taking samples which will be confirmed or not to the predictions having made. These are the process in which meanings are created by transforming the text. In the end of the process, the readers do some correction on the predictions. The top-down processing, indeed, takes the background knowledge of the readers as the most important thing in reading.
c. Interactive processing
Interactive processing points the process of reading as the interaction between the information of a text with the readers‟ prior
knowledge. This process combines the two previous processing i.e. the bottom-up and top-down processing. As the process of reading happen, the readers arouse what they have on their background knowledge connected with the written information in the text. So, in interactive process, the readers both recognize words and predict the implied information in creating meaning.
recognition and background knowledge of the readers. Those approaches help the readers in reading comprehension.
4. There are some strategies in Reading Comprehension
Reading comprehension cannot be done instantly. There must be some strategies that are used by the students to reach their comprehension in reading. The strategy that is used by the students must be different from one another. It depends on which strategy they fit in. Students can also use some strategies in reading comprehension proposed by Brown (2001: 306-310), they are as follows:
a. Identifying the purpose in reading
The purpose of reading is important in reading. The readers need to know the aim of what they are reading before they read the passage. It is the same as the students. Students have to know the purpose of the reading as it can help them in comprehending the text.
b. Using grapheme rules and patterns to aid in bottom-up decoding. This strategy is mainly addressed to beginning learners. The learners are introduced to some patterns of both in oral language and written language. This will help them in understanding the text.
Silent reading is appropriate for intermediate and advanced students. This strategy leads the students to try inferring meanings from context. It is also best practices to make the students become efficient readers.
d. Skimming
Skimming is done by the students to grasp the information by reading the text at glance. It is useful for the students as they can practice on prediction. For example, they predict the aim of the text, the main idea, and even supporting details.
e. Scanning
Like skimming, scanning is included in fast reading. In contrast, scanning concerns only in finding certain information. The students find the information they need without reading the whole text.
f. Guessing when the readers are not certain
This strategy is useful to encourage the students to be accurate guessers. In guessing, the students try to guess the meaning of a word, a grammatical relationship (for example pronoun references), a discourse relationship, a cultural reference, content messages, and infer implied meaning.
g. Analyzing vocabulary
word brings. Grammatical contexts give signals of information and semantic contexts can be clues for the topic.
h. Distinguishing between literal and implied meaning
This strategy is closely related to the top-down processing skill. The meanings are got not only from its literal but also from the surface structure.
i. Capitalizing on discourse markers to process relationship.
To relate among ideas, the students need to pay attention to the discourse markers in the text. They have to notice on the phrases, clauses, and sentences as those usually bring discourse markers.
Indeed, there are some of strategies that can be used by the students to achieve their comprehension in reading. They can identify the purpose of reading, use bottom-up approach, use semantic mapping, guess, do skimming and scanning, and analyze the vocabulary. They can also pay attention to the literal meaning, implied meaning, and discourse markers to help them in achieving the reading comprehension.
5. There are some kinds of Reading.
Depending on the purposes of reading, Nunan (2003 :74) classified reading into two types of activities, they are as follows:
a. Intensive Reading
without worrying about the meaning of every single word. The goal of intensive reading is comprehension the text. The use of translation makes sure that learners understand, and when the learners do some of the translation themselves, it allows the teacher to check whether they understand.
Here are the aspects, according to Tarigan (2008 : 12) says that commonly there are two aspects of reading, they are as follows:
a. Mechanical skill that can be called as a lower order, this aspect covers:
1) Letter from introduction.
2) Linguistic elements introduction. 3) Linking introduction.
4) Speed of reading to show standard.
b. Comprehension skill that can be called the higher order, this aspect covers:
1) Knowing the simple meaning (lexical, grammatical, rhetorical).
2) Knowing the meaning.
3) Evaluation or assesment (content, form). 4) The flexibility speed of reading.
Based on the statement above, it can be concluded that intensive reading means reading shorter texts to extract specific information.
During extensive reading learners should be interested in what they are reading and should be reading whith their attention on the meaning of the text rather than on learning the language features of the text, Nation (2009 :50). This explanation makes readers deal with a longer text as whole, which requires the ability to understand the component part and their contribution the overall meaning, usually for one‟s own pleasure.
Based on the statement above, it can be concluded that extensive reading is a form of learning from meaning-focused input.
B. Reading Strategies
It covers three sub-categories: Global Reading Strategies, Problem-Solving Reading Strategies and Support Reading Strategies. Global
Reading Strategies represent a set of reading strategies oriented toward a
global analysis of text. Examples include “evaluating what to read or
ignore, noting text characteristics, guessing what the material is about, etc.” These strategies can be thought of as generalized, intentional reading
C. Vocabulary
1. Definition of Vocabulary
Learning English is not something new for university students. They often seak and write. In English, there are four skills that should be mastered by students: Reading, Writing, Speaking, and Listening. One of the ways how to master English is mastering vocabulary. However students do not have a lot of vocabulary they have limited in four skill in English.
“Vocabulary” is the stock of words used by people; a list or
collection of words of language. Besides that, according to Rivers in Nunan (1991), vocabulary is essential for supporting the study of the second language. It means that vocabulary is the key of success of someone in learning English as a second language. Pieter A Napa (1990:5) states that vocabulary is one of the basic components of language and that is no language exist without words. According to Hatch and Brown (1995:368) proposed that the term “Vocabulary” referring to a list or set of
words that individual speakers of language might use, since vocabulary is list, we may thing that the only system involved is that of alphabetical order.
2. There are some types of Vocabulary
There are three types of vocabulary used in English (Richard and Joanne Vacca, 1989 : 299), they are as follows:
a. General vocabularies, which consist of everyday words widely,
acknowledged meaning in common usage.
b. Special vocabulary, it is made up from everybody‟s general vocabulary, which is taken on specialized meaning when adapted to particular content area.
c. Technical vocabulary, in which consist of word that have usage and
application only in particular subject matter field. English vocabularies are classified into:
a. Content words. The content word can be learned in small groups around “life” situation. Content words include:
1) Nouns
example: table, student, information 2) Verbs
example: tell, choose, walk 3) Adjectives
example: happy, tall, beautiful 4) Adverb
example: slowly, carefully, often b. Function words.
example: on, in, at etc. 2) Auxiliary
example: can, must, should etc. 3) Conjunction
example: and, but, because etc. 4) Pronoun
example: me, you, him etc. 5) Articles
example: a, an, the. 6) Modifier
example: many, much, some.
This research focuses on the content vocabulary dealing with Noun, Verb, Adjective and Adverb.
D. Previous Studies
There are some research findings related to reading strategies. The previous studies showed positive result.
Fenfang Li (2010) in his science entitled “A Study of English Reading Strategies
Used by Senior Middle School Students” found that were several
Nurazila Abdul Aziz, Suzana Ab Rahim, Etty Harniza Binti Harun, Nor Aslah Adzmi, Hasfazilah Ahmat, Samsiah Bidin, Mohd Rizaimy Shaharudin (2011) in their study entitled “The Reading Strategies Awareness among English as a Second Language (ESL) Learners in
Malaysia’s University” , found that there The data also provided evidence
that they were able to practice them.
Ana Cristina Lahuerta Martínez (2008) in her study entitled“Analysis
of ESP university students’ reading strategy awareness”,found that there
was a moderate to high overall use of reading strategies and find that students show higher reported use for problem-solving and global reading strategies.
Humeyra Genc (2011) in his study entitled “Reading Strategies Used
by Low-Proficient EFL Learners” found that was reading is similar to
those used in paper-based reading such as “using reference materials”.
E. Basic Assumption
following characteristics: (1)deliberate, conscious plans, techniques and skills; (2) aiming to enhance reading comprehension and overcome comprehension failures; and (3) behavioral and mental. They are of interest for what they reveal about the way readers manage their interaction with the written text and how these strategies are related to text comprehension (Carrell, 1989).
The previous studies showed positive result, it is proved that reading strategies is the crucial thing in increasing students‟ vocabulary competence and the students‟ reading strategies and their vocabulary
competence is important to be investigated.
F. Hypothesis
