Reading Comprehension, Reading Purposes and Models of Reading.

Monday, April 9, 2018

Kang Ogud - kang ogud lovers in this day we will review about Reading Comprehension, Reading Purposes and Models of Reading. 

Reading Comprehension

There are some theories related to reading comprehension. There are three main points to be discussed. They are reading purposes, processing components of reading, and models of reading.

Reading Purposes

Reading is the practice of using text to create meaning.39 It means that the readers have to be able to reconstruct the meaning of the text when reading. If there is no meaning being gotten by readers, there is no reading taking place. Reading is an activity providing many benefits. People read texts for some purposes. There are seven kinds of reading purposes.40 Reading intended to search for the simple information. Reading intended to skim quickly. Reading intended to learn from texts. Reading intended to integrate information. Reading to write (or search for information needed for writing). Reading intended to critique texts. Reading intended to get general information.

Processing Components of Reading

Reading comprehension processes are likely to work for skilled readers, assuming a purpose of general comprehension of a longer text. Based on this, reading processes are divided into two parts: lower and higher level reading processes.

Lower-level processes

Parts of lower reading processes are lexical access, syntactic parsing, semantic proposition formation, and working memory activation.41 Reading comprehension cannot be separated from the word recognition skills (lexical access). Word recognition  is analogically as “a car” that will bring us into destination that is comprehension. After that, we will do the syntactic parsing. It is the ability to recognize phrasal groupings words ordering information and the relation among clauses.

The next is semantic proposition formation, which is process of combining word meanings and structural information into basic clause-level meaning unit. This process helps the reader to integrate information from the previous information. As the analogy of “a car”, the working memory is the engine of the car. The working parts fit together for efficient coordination and the fuel (word recognition) gives the useful energy in the engine to drive the car.

Higher-level processes

This process elaborated interpretation of how we want to understand text meaning. It includes text model of comprehension, situation model of reader interpretation, background of knowledge use and inferencing, and executive control processes. The most fundamental process is the coordination of ideas from text that represent the main and supporting points. It also represents the network idea of a text (text model comprehension).42 At the same time, that the first process occurs, the fluent reader begins to interpret information of the text built the emerging text model. The situation model integrates text information with a well developed network or ideas from readers’ background knowledge and it interprets new information. 

The ability of fluent readers to integrate text and background is the hallmark of expert reading in a certain topic. Text model and situation model construction require the abilities to oversee, monitor, comprehend and reestablish goal (executive control processes). This represents the way that we assess our understanding of text.

Reading to find simple information will emphasize the word recognition and  some background knowledge anticipation of certain items.43 Reading for general comprehension will use balanced combination of text model comprehension and situation model interpretation to integrate with the background knowledge.

Models of Reading

There are two kinds of models of reading. They are metaphorical and specific models of reading.44 The first is metaphorical models of reading. Metaphorical is divided into bottom-up models, top-down models and interactive models.45 Bottom-up models occurs when readers create a piece-by-piece translation of the information in the text, with the readers’ own background of knowledge. It means that the reader has to scan from letters to letters, recognize the words from one to another, associate among phrases, clauses, and sentences, and finally it is processed into phonemic units representing lexical meaning. Top-down models happens assume that the reader has set of expectations about text information and sample enough information from the text to confirm or reject his expectations. It means that the reader constructs meaning by bringing their early own background of knowledge to the text being read. Interactive models suggest that the reader can combine the keys idea from top-down models with ideas from bottom-up models. It means that the reader both recognizes words and predicts the implied information in constructing meaning of the text

The second types are specific models of reading. This model is a good for research as the purpose of reading. Specific models of reading divided into psycholinguistic guessing game model, interactive compensatory model, word recognition models and sample view of reading model.46 The first is psycholinguistic guessing game. Psycholinguistic guessing game model portrays reading comprehension as a universally applicable interactive process of hypothesizing, sampling, and confirming information based on background of knowledge, expectation about the text, sampling features of the text and context information of the text. The second is the interactive compensatory model. This model argues that readers develop efficient reading processes, less- automatic processes interact regularly, automatic processes operate relatively independently, and reading difficulties lead to increased interaction and compensation. The next is basic word recognition model. This model is fundamentally bottom-up in orientation and they account for a considerable amount of what we currently know about word recognition processes.  The last is simple view of reading model. This model argues that reading comprehension is composed of a combination of word recognition abilities and general comprehension abilities.

Teaching Reading in Senior High School

Teaching is an activity in which the teacher guides and facilitates learning, gives for the learners to learn, and sets the condition for learning.47 The teaching of reading has an

important objective. Based on 2013 curriculum, reading in Senior High School in Indonesia is aimed at making students comprehend interpersonal, ideational, and textual meaning in various written text. The texts are in the form of descriptive, narrative, spoof, recount, procedure, report, news item, anecdote, exposition, explanation, and discussion.

Based on 2013 curriculum, standard of competence of reading for senior high school students grade X states that the students should be able to understand the meaning of written short functional texts and essays in the form of descriptive, narrative, and recount text related to the surrounding to get knowledge. Meanwhile, the basic competency states that the students should be able to respond the meaning of short functional texts both formal and informal accurately, fluently, and acceptably in essays related to surrounding and to respond the meaning and rethoric steps accurately, fluently, and acceptably in essays related to surroundings to get knowledge in the form of descriptive, narrative and recount texts.

REFERENCE

39 Johnson, Andrew P, Teaching Reading and Writing, (New York: Rowman & Littlefield Education,2008), p.3

40 William Grabe and Fredricka L. Stolleer, Teaching and Researching Reading, (Britain: Pearson Education, 2002), p. 13

41 William Grabe and Fredricka L. Stolleer, Teaching and Researching Reading, (Britain: Pearson Education, 2002), p. 20

43 William Grabe and Fredricka L. Stolleer, Teaching and Researching Reading, (Britain: Pearson Education, 2002), p. 26

44 William Grabe and Fredricka L. Stolleer, Teaching and

Researching Reading, (Britain: Pearson Education, 2002), p. 31

45 William Grabe and Fredricka L. Stolleer, Teaching and Researching Reading, (Britain: Pearson Education, 2002), p. 31

46 William Grabe and Fredricka L. Stolleer, Teaching and Researching Reading, (Britain: Pearson Education, 2002), p. 34

47 Douglas Brown, Principles of Language Learning and Teaching, (New York : Pearson Education, 2000) , p. 7

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