C. Data Collection
II. Literature Review A. Reading
1. The understanding of Reading
Reading is one of English skills besides speaking, listening, and writing. It is the way to understand written messages. According to Alderson (2000:5) reading means a result of interaction between the researcher’s mind and the reader mind. It is the way how the reader tries to get meaning from the researcher. In this process, it is called the other way to communicate between reader and researcher, which the reader will get meaning or sense meaning of the researcher.
According to Pang (2003:6), reading is defined as understanding written text. He said that reading is consists of two related process: word recognition and comprehension. Word recognition is defined as the process of getting how written symbols correspond to one’s spoken language while comprehension is the process of making the meaning of words, sentences and connected text
The goal of reading is understand the meaning. Based on definitions above reading can be defined as the way to understand the meaning of the written text or sense of the researcher.
While even though the goal of reading is comprehend the meaning of the text, the reader should recognize the written symbol and then the researcher will get meaning in comprehending the messages of the text.
349 2. The Purpose of Reading
There are many reasons and purposes people read. Some people read for obligation, for example in education for students and teacher and business for businessman. Other people read for enjoyment to entertain and know the actual information.
Grabe and Stoller (2002: 11-15) state the purpose of reading as follow:
a. Reading to search for simple information
In reading to search, we typically scan the text for a specific piece of information or a specific word.
b. Reading to skim quickly
Reading to skim (i.e. sampling segments of the text for a general understanding) is a common part of many reading task and useful skill it is own right. It involves, in essence, a combination of strategies for guessing where important information might be in the text, and than using basic reading comprehension skills on those segments of the text until a general idea is formed.
c. Reading to learn from texts
Reading to learn typically occurs in academic and professional contexts in which a person need to learn a considerable amount of information from a text.
d. Reading to integrate information, write and critiques texts
Reading to integrate information requires additional decisions about the relative importance of complementary, mutually supporting or conflicting information and the likely restructuring of a rhetorical frame to accommodate information from multiple sources.
e. Reading for general comprehension
The nation of general reading comprehension has been intentionally saved for last in this discussion for two reasons. First, it is the most basic purpose of reading, underlying and supporting most other purpose for reading. Second, general reading comprehension is actually more complex than commonly assumed.
3. Reading Comprehension
Comprehension is a special kind of thinking process. A reader comprehends by actively constructing meaning internally from interacting with the material that is really. Successful comprehension involves the reader’s discovery the meaning needed to achieve the particular purposes. Comprehension includes understanding the information in the text as well as changing the knowledge one used to understand the text in the first place.
Snow (2002:11) defined reading comprehension as the process of simultaneously extracting and constructing meaning through interaction and involvement with written language. Extracting and constructing meaning of reading comprehension is to emphasize both the importance and the insufficiency of the text as a determinant in reading comprehension.
Nunan (2005:71) also say that reading comprehension refers to reading for meaning, understanding, and entertainment. It involves higher-order thinking skill and is much more complex than merely decoding specific words. Teaching children how to derive meaning as well as analyze and synthesize what they have read is an essential part of the reading process.
4. Levels of Comprehension
Reading comprehension is considered to occur at three levels of complexity. Clymer in Danny & Timothy 2008: 17 point out that there are three level of comprehension, namely:
a. Literal Comprehension
Literal comprehension, the lowest of the three levels, requires a reader to be able to retell or recall the facts or information presented in a text.
350 b. Inferential Comprehension
Inferential comprehension, the next level, refers to the ability of a reader to take in information that is inferred or implied within a text. If a text indicates that a character is carrying an umbrella while walking down a street on a cloudy day, you can infer that the character is expecting rain.
c. Critical Comprehension
Critical comprehension is evaluating written material, comparing the ideas discovered in the material with known standard and drawing conclusion about their accuracy appropriateness and timelines.
d. Student Team Achievement Divisions (STAD) 1. The understanding of STAD
STAD is one of the simplest of all cooperative learning methods and it is a good model to begin with for teachers who are new to the cooperative approach.Kagan 2009: 460 state that, STAD is an extremely well-researched, effective approach to mastery of basic facts and information. Research of STAD has also revealed very positive effects on ethnic relations and various types of prosaically development. The use of STAD includes enduring teams (usually lasting about six weeks) and an improvement point scoring system, which provides high motivation for students across the range of ability levels.
Slavin 1991: 8, said that STAD is the simplest of the Student Team Learning methodsin which students are assigned to four- or five-member learning teams that are mixed in performance scores in the scoring system.Based on the description above, it can be concluded that STAD is one of the simplest of all cooperative learning method, and is a good model to begin with for teachers who are new to cooperative approach. STAD is a cooperative learning method which emphasizes on students mastering the materials through group learning, and the group has responsibility for their members. Pointed out that STAD is not a meant as a comprehensive teaching method, but rather as a way to organize classes, with the principal goal being to accelerate the achievement of all students.
2. Characteristic of STAD
According to Slavin 1991: 8, there are characteristic of STAD:
- Students in groups learn cooperatively resolve the matter according to the basic competencies to be achieved.
- The group was formed of students who have different skills, good level of high, medium, and low. If possible, group members are from different ethnic or religious and gender quality.
- Award more emphasis on group rather than individual.
3. The Components of STAD
According to Slavin in Kagan 2009: 460, STAD consists of five major components, namely class presentation, teams, quizzes, individual improvement scores and team recognition.
a. Class Presentation
Material in STAD Technique is initially introduced in a class presentation. This is most often direct instruction or a lecture discussion conducted by the teacher.
b. Teams
Teams are composed of four or five students who represent a cross section of the class in term of academic performance, sex and race or ethnicity.
351 c. Quizzes
After teacher presentation and team practice, the students who take individual quizzes are not permitted to help one another during the quizzes.
d. Individual Improvement Score
Each student is given a “base” score, derived from the students average past performance on similar quizzes.
e. Team Recognition
Team may earn certificate or other rewards if their average scores exceed a certain criterion.
It is based on:
1) Improvement point. Students earn points for their teams based on the degree to which their quiz scores (percentage correct) exceed their base score.
2) Recognizing Team Accomplishments. Three levels of awards are given.
4. Steps in STAD
According to Slavin (1991:26) STAD consists of a regular cycle of instructional activities, as follows:
1. Teach, the teacher present the lesson. Each lesson in student teams achievement divisions begins with a class presentation done by the teacher.
2. Team study. During team study, team members’ tasks are to master the material teacher presented in your lesson and to help their teammates master the material. Students have worksheets and answer sheets they can use to practice the skill being taught and to asses themselves and their teammates
3. Test, the main idea of giving test is individual quiz. Teacher distributes the quiz and gives students adequate time to complete it. This time, students are not allowed to work together on the quiz, at this point students must show what they have learned as individuals.
4. Team recognition, it figures individual improvement scores and team scores and awarding certificates or other team rewards.
5. Team Scores. Record each team member’s improvement points and divide team member’s improvement points by the number of team members who are present.
6. Recognizing Team Accomplishment. Three levels of awards are given. These are based on average team score (team average = total team score ÷ number of team members).
5. The Advantages and Disadvantages of STAD
Slavin (1987:12) stated, there are some advantages of STAD:
a) Student work together in achieving its objectives by upholding the norms of the group.
b) Actively assist and motivate students to succeed shared passion.
c) Active role as a peer tutor to furtherenhance the success of the group.
d) Interaction among students with increasing their ability to argue.
In addition, STAD also has disadvantages, concluded as follows:
a) Require a longer time for students, so it is difficult to achieve the target curriculum.
b) Require a longer time for teachers so that teachers generally do not want to use cooperative learning.
c) Require special skills of teachers so that not all teachers can do cooperative learning.
d) Specific nature of students’ demand such as the nature of love to work together.
352 III. Research Methodology