Basic Reading Comprehension’s Materials

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DEFINITION OF READING, BENEFIT OF READING, AND

TYPES OF READING’S TEXT

A. DEFINITION OF READING
Allah S.W.T has commanded us as the follower of the Prophet
Muhammad S.A.W. to read. As it is stated clearly in the Holly Qur’an surah 96
Al-‘Alaq 1-5. It gives insight that Allah the one who poses the knowledge gives
gift to us to be literate by reading and writing.
Then, what is reading?
Some experts has explained the meaning of reading. Among them:
1. Nuttal (1996, p. 4) – “Getting out of the text as nearly as possible the message the
writer put into it”
2. Smith (1991, p. 9) – “An understanding a message conveyed by the writer through
visual and non-visual information”
3. Iwai (2010, p. 1) – “Reading is a complex activity.  The aim of reading is to get
text meaning based on visually encoded information”
4. Broughton et all (2003, p. 89) – “It must be recognized that reading is a complex
skill, that is to say that it involves a whole lesser skills”
The definition of reading by Nuttal (1996) and Smith (1991) indicate that
reading is to comprehend the language and its message (language
comprehension). Meanwhile Iwai (2010) and Broughton (2003) point out that
reading is a complex activity. It is because before able to comprehend the message
of the text, the reader also needs to decode the word (it deals with the reader‘s
ability to do word reading).
Further, Oakhill et all (2015:3) explained that the variation in reading
ability can be captured (simply) in only two components: word reading (Decoding
- the ability to apply the knowledge of letter-sound relationships, including
knowledge of letter patterns, to correctly pronounce written words1) and language
comprehension (the ability to understand words, sentences, and text). The relation
1
Taken from https://www.readingrockets.org/helping/target/phonics.
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between reading, word reading and language comprehension can be seen in this
figure below.

The figure above indicates that reading ability consists of two components;
language comprehension & word reading.
Meanwhile if one of the components is disrupt, then the reader will face
difficulties in reading. The reading difficulties can be seen in the table below.
Word Reading Language Comprehension
Poor Good
Poor Generally Poor Reader Dyslexic
Good Poor Comprehender Good Reader
In conclusion, reading is a complex activity that involves both perception
and thought. Reading consists of two related processes: word recognition and
comprehension. Word recognition refers to the process of perceiving how written
symbols correspond to one’s spoken language. Comprehension is the process of
making sense of words, sentences and connected text.
Readers typically make use of background knowledge, vocabulary,
grammatical knowledge, experience with text and other strategies to help them
understand written text.

B. BENEFIT OF READING
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Reading plays important part in our life. It may not guarantee one’s
success but, it is the light to guide our life because mostly all the information
delivered in the form of written text. It becomes significant to have reading skill.
Hebert (2018) listed 10 benefits of reading.
1. Mental Stimulation
Studies have shown that staying mentally stimulated can slow the
progress of (or possibly even prevent) Alzheimer’s and dementia, since
keeping your brain active and engaged prevents it from losing power. Just
like any other muscle in the body, the brain requires exercise to keep it
strong and healthy, so the phrase “use it or lose it” is particularly apt when it
comes to your mind. Doing puzzles and playing games such as chess have
also been found to be helpful with cognitive stimulation.
2. Stress Reduction
No matter how much stress you have at work, in your personal
relationships, or countless other issues faced in daily life, it all just slips
away when you lose yourself in a great story. A well-written novel can
transport you to other realms, while an engaging article will distract you and
keep you in the present moment, letting tensions drain away and allowing
you to relax.
3. Knowledge
Everything you read fills your head with new bits of information,
and you never know when it might come in handy. The more knowledge
you have, the better-equipped you are to tackle any challenge you’ll ever
face. Additionally, here’s a bit of food for thought: should you ever find
yourself in dire circumstances, remember that although you might lose
everything else—your job, your possessions, your money, even your health
—knowledge can never be taken from you.
4. Vocabulary Expansion
This goes with the above topic: the more you read, the more words
you gain exposure to, and they’ll inevitably make their way into your
everyday vocabulary. Being articulate and well-spoken is of great help in
any profession, and knowing that you can speak to higher-ups with self-
confidence can be an enormous boost to your self-esteem. It could even aid
in your career, as those who are well-read, well-spoken, and knowledgeable
on a variety of topics tend to get promotions more quickly (and more often)
than those with smaller vocabularies and lack of awareness of literature,
scientific breakthroughs, and global events.
Reading books is also vital for learning new languages, as non-
native speakers gain exposure to words used in context, which will
ameliorate their own speaking and writing fluency.
5. Memory Improvement
When you read a book, you have to remember an assortment of
characters, their backgrounds, ambitions, history, and nuances, as well as
the various arcs and sub-plots that weave their way through every story.
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That’s a fair bit to remember, but brains are marvelous things and can
remember these things with relative ease. Amazingly enough, every new
memory you create forges new synapses (brain pathways) and strengthens
existing ones, which assists in short-term memory recall as well as
stabilizing moods. How cool is that?
6. Stronger Analytical Thinking Skills
Have you ever read an amazing mystery novel, and solved the
mystery yourself before finishing the book? If so, you were able to put
critical and analytical thinking to work by taking note of all the details
provided and sorting them out to determine “whodunnit”. That same ability
to analyze details also comes in handy when it comes to critiquing the plot;
determining whether it was a well-written piece, if the characters were
properly developed, if the storyline ran smoothly, etc. Should you ever have
an opportunity to discuss the book with others, you’ll be able to state your
opinions clearly, as you’ve taken the time to really consider all the aspects
involved.
7. Improved Focus and Concentration
In our internet-crazed world, attention is drawn in a million
different directions at once as we multi-task through every day. In a single
5-minute span, the average person will divide their time between working
on a task, checking email, chatting with a couple of people (via g-chat,
Skype, etc.), keeping an eye on Twitter, monitoring their smartphone, and
interacting with co-workers. This type of ADD-like behavior causes stress
levels to rise, and lowers our productivity. When you read a book, all of
your attention is focused on the story—the rest of the world just falls away,
and you can immerse yourself in every fine detail you’re absorbing. Try
reading for 15-20 minutes every day and you’ll be surprised at how much
more focused you become.
8. Better Writing Skills
This goes hand-in-hand with the expansion of your vocabulary:
exposure to published, well-written work has a noted effect on one’s own
writing, as observing the cadence, fluidity, and writing styles of other
authors will invariably influence your own work. In the same way that
musicians influence one another, and painters use techniques established by
previous masters, so do writers learn how to craft prose by reading the
works of others.
9. Tranquility
In addition to the relaxation that accompanies reading a good book,
it’s possible that the subject you read about can bring about immense inner
peace and tranquility. Reading spiritual texts can lower blood pressure and
bring about an immense sense of calm, while reading self-help books has
been shown to help people suffering from certain mood disorders and mild
mental illnesses.
10. Free Entertainment
Though many of us like to buy books so we can annotate them and
dog-ear pages for future reference, they can be quite pricey. For low-budget
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entertainment, you can visit your local library and bask in the glory of the
countless tomes available there for free. Libraries have books on every
subject imaginable, and since they rotate their stock and constantly get new
books, you’ll never run out of reading materials. If you happen to live in an
area that doesn’t have a local library, or if you’re mobility-impaired and
can’t get to one easily, most libraries have their books available in PDF or
ePub format so you can read them on your e-reader, iPad, or your computer
screen. There are also many sources online where you can download free e-
books, so go hunting for something new to read! There’s a reading genre for
every literate person on the planet, and whether your tastes lie in classical
literature, poetry, fashion magazines, biographies, religious texts, young
adult books, self-help guides, street lit, or romance novels, there’s
something out there to capture your curiosity and imagination. Step away
from your computer for a little while, crack open a book, and replenish your
soul for a little while.

C. TYPES OF READING TEXT

A text is words that are put together to communicate meaning (Anderson
& Anderson, 1997:1). When different forms of writing are presented, it makes
different text types. According to Anderson & Anderson (1997:1), text types are
divided into two main categories. Those are factual text and literary text. Factual
text is a text which has purpose to inform, instruct or persuade by giving facts and
information. The ones belong to factual text types are factual description, factual
recount, information report, procedure, procedural recount, and explanation 2.
Meanwhile literary text is a text which has purpose to entertain or elicite an
emotional response by using language to create mental images. The ones belong
to literary text are literary description, literary recount, personal responses,
review, and narratives3.
Further, Françoise (2010: 3-4) listed the main text types one usually
come accros:
- Novels, short stories, tales; other literary text and passage (e.g. essays, diaries,
anectdotes, biographies)
- Plays
- Poems, limericks, nursery rhymes
- Letters, postcards, telegrams, notes
2
Taken from https://www.det.nsw.edu.au.
3
Ibid.
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- Newspaper and magazine (headline, articles, editorials, letters to editor, stop

pree, classified ads, weather forecast, radio/TV/ theather programmes)
- Specialized articles, reports, reviews, essays, bussines letters, summaries,
pamphletes (etc)
- Handbooks, textbooks, guidebooks,
- Recipe
- Advertisement, travel brochures, catalogues
- Puzzles, problems, rules for games
- Instruction (e.g. warning), direction (e.g. How to use....), notice, rules and
regulations, posters, signs (e.g. road signs), form (e.g. application form,
landing cards) graffiti, menus, price listss, tickets
- Comic strips, cartoons and carricatur, legends (of maps, picture)
- Statictic, diagram, flow / pie charts, time-tables, maps
- Telephone directories, dictionaries, phrasebooks

REFERENCES
Anderson, M., & Anderson, K. (1997). Text Types in English 2.
South Yarra: Macmillan Education Australia PTY LTD.
Broughton et all. 2003. Teaching English as a Foreign Language. London: The
Taylor and Francis e-library.
Grellet, Françoise. 2010. Developing Reading Skills. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Hebert, Lana W. 2018. 10 Benefits of Reading: Why you should Read Everyday.
Retrieved from https://www.lifehack.org/articles/lifestyle/10-benefits-
reading-why-you-should-read-everyday.html.
Iwai, Y. (2010). Re-envisioning Reading Comprehension for English Language
Learners. TESL Journal, 16(1), 1-2. Retrieved from
http://itselj.org/Articles/Iwai-Reading.html.
Long, Rebecca. 2016. Benefit of Reading and Types of Reading. Retrieved from
http://www.librariesireland.ie/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/Benefits-of-
Reading-and-Types-of-Reading.pdf.
Nuttal, C. (1996). Teaching Reading Skills in a Foreign Language.
Oxford: Heinemann.
Oakhill, Jane, Cain, Kate, and Elbro, Carsten. 2015. Understanding and Teaching
Reading Comprehension a Handbook. New York: Roudtledge.
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THE NEEDED SKILLS IN READING

Reading is a lifelong skill to be used both at school and throughout life

(Küçükoğlu, 2012:709). Because of its importance, reading skill must be obtained.
Meanwhile, reading skills are the cognitive processes that a reader uses in making
sense of a text. For fluent readers, most of the reading skills are employed
unconsciously and automatically. When confronted with a challenging text, fluent
readers apply these skills consciously and strategically in order to comprehend
(Mikulecky, 2008:2) .
According to Long (2016:3) there are four stages of children reading
development. Those stages are: First, learning to read; Second, developing
independent reading skills; Third, reading with absorption; Fourth, critical
reading.
Stage One: Learning to Read
This stage begins when a child starts to learn their letters, either at
home or in school. For most of this stage, a focus will be placing on learning
to decode; learning the alphabet and the sounds that letters make, learning to
distinguish these sounds in speech and learning to sound words out. As their
fluency develops they will begin to move towards attaining meaning,
towards comprehension of the stories they are reading.
Stage Two: Developing Independent Reading Skills
At this stage, the central focus will be on extensive reading in books at
the appropriate level of difficulty. Chapter books will feature heavily here;
these are longer and feature more demanding language and literary
conventions. Reading practice is focused here on fluency development.
Children will be learning how to decode longer words; words of three
syllables or more. An emphasis will also be placed on oral fluency with the
phrasing, automaticity and focus on meaning gradually being transferred to
the silent reading process. It is worth nothing that the concept of fluency not
only describes a functional level of the reading process, it also evaluates the
relationship the child reader has to the text they are reading. As fluency
continues to develop through practice, comprehension will also improve.
Stage Three: Reading with Absorption
This stage begins when children attain independence in their reading
lives and fluency in children’s novels. Now reading development involves
extensive reading in children’s novels at gradually increasing levels of
difficulty. This allows the child reader to develop the levels of fluency and
comprehension required to support identification and absorption. These two
are at the core of the reading process and is the foundation of later reading
development.
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When children read with identification and absorption, they engage

with the text on a deeper and more meaningful level and this enables them
to perceive an accurate representation of the story. They actively participate
in the story they are reading. The development of high levels of fluency and
comprehension allows the maturing child reader to read for pleasure, for
conceptual stimulation and for information.
Stage Four: Critical Reading
At this stage, children are not only evolving as readers, they are
further developing as individual human beings. These emotional, social and
physical changes often stimulate a new cognitive capability that continues to
develop as they progress through the education system and into adulthood.
This capability is critical consciousness, the ability to reflect on one’s own
experiences, to think critically, objectively and analytically. In terms of
reading, this allows children or teenagers to enter a new stage in their
reading development; a new critical dimension of experience which is
brought to bear on the texts they engage with. This allows a more effective
reading process to develop. Children with strong reading backgrounds and
experiences and who read with fluency will often access a relatively
automatic and accurate flow of understanding when engaging with a new
text or revisiting a familiar one.
This new critical reading faculty allows children to take control of
their reading in terms of purpose, direction and their own responses to the
text. They will begin to recognize how material is organized, how to
evaluate and synthesize ideas, how to read meaningfully.

What about those who learn reading as the foreign language? Are the
stages and skills the same as it was mentioned above?
Based on Broughton (2003:90), someone needs three components in
order to be able to read English Text. Those components are 1) the recognition of
the black marks, 2) the correlation of these with formal linguistic elements, and 3)
the further correlation of the result with meaning. The explanation of those
components are as followed:
1) The ability to recognize stylized shapes which are figures on a ground, curves
and lines and dots in patterned relationships.
2) The ability to correlate the black marks on the paper – the patterned shapes –
with language. The elements may be complex groups of sounds which might
be called ‘words’ or ‘phrases’ or ‘sentences’ or even ‘paragraphs’, chapters’, or
‘books’; or they might be the most basic elements, the single ‘sounds’ called
phonemes.
3) The ability to correlate the black marks on the paper by way of the formal
elements of language, let us say the words as sound, with the meanings which
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those words symbolized (it is said as the total skill of reading which is
essentially an intellectual skill).

In details Brown (2004:187-188) formulated the micro and macro skill of

reading. The micro skills of reading are presented below.
a. Discriminating between distinctive graphemes and orthographic pattern of
English.
b. Retaining chunks of the language of different lengths in short-term memory.
c. Process writing at an efficient rate of speed to suit the purpose.
d. Recognizing a core of words, and interpret word order patterns and their
significance.
e. Recognizing grammatical word classes (nouns, verb, etc.), system (e.g. tense,
agreement, pluralization) pattern, rules, and elliptical forms.
f. Recognizing that a particular meaning may be expressed in different
grammatical forms.
g. Recognizing cohesive devices in written discourse and their role in signaling
the relationship between and among clauses.
The macro skills of reading are included in these following skills:
a. Recognizing the rhetorical forms of written discourse and their significance for
interpretation.
b. Recognizing the communicative functions of written text, according to form
and purpose.
c. Inferring context that is not explicit by using background knowledge.
d. Distinguishing between literal and implied meaning.
e. Detecting culturally specific references and interpreting them in a context of
the appropriate cultural schemata.
In addition to the presented reading skills above, Mikulecky (2008:3)
developed the reading skills and reading strategies which need to be master in
order to be a good reader. Those are:
1. Automatic decoding. Being able to recognize a word at a glance.
2. Previewing and predicting. Giving the text a quick once-over to be able to
guess what is to come.
3. Specifying purpose. Knowing why a text is being read.
4. Identifying genre. Knowing the nature of the text in order to predict the form
and content.
5. Questioning. Asking questions in an inner dialog with the author.
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6. Scanning. Looking through a text very rapidly for specific information.

7. Recognizing topics. Finding out what the text is about.
8. Classification of ideas into main topics and details. Categorizing words and
ideas on the basis of their relationships; distinguishing general and specific.
9. Locating topic sentences. Identifying the general statement in a paragraph.
10. Stating the main idea (or thesis) of a sentence, paragraph or passage. Knowing
what the author’s point is about the topic.
11. Recognizing patterns of relationships. Identifying the relationships between
ideas; the overall structure of the text.
12. Identifying and using words that signal the patterns of relationships between
ideas. Being able to see connections between ideas by the use of words such as
first, then, later.
13. Inferring the main idea, using patterns and other clues.
14. Recognizing and using pronouns, referents, and other lexical equivalents as
clues to cohesion.
15. Guessing the meaning of unknown words from the context. Using such clues
as knowledge of word parts, syntax, and relationship patterns.
16. Skimming. Quickly getting the gist or overview of a passage or book.
17. Paraphrasing. Re-stating texts in the reader’s own words in order to monitor
one’s own comprehension.
18. Summarizing. Shortening material by retaining and re-stating main ideas and
leaving out details.
19. Drawing conclusions. Putting together information from parts of the text and
inducing new or additional ideas.
20. Drawing inferences and using evidence. Using evidence in the text to know
things that are unstated.
21. Visualizing. Picturing, or actually drawing a picture or diagram, of what is
described in the text.
22. Reading critically. Judging the accuracy of a passage with respect to what the
reader already knows; distinguishing fact from opinion.
23. Reading faster. Reading fast enough to allow the brain to process the input as
ideas rather than single words.
24. Adjusting reading rate according to materials and purpose. Being able to
choose the speed and strategies needed for the level of comprehension desired
by the reader.
In conclusion,
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REFERENCES
Broughton et all. 2003. Teaching English as a Foreign Language. London: The
Taylor and Francis e-library.
Brown, D. H. 2001. Principles of Language Learning and Teaching
Fourth Edition. San Fransisco: Addison Wesley Longman, Inc.
Küçükoğlu, Hülya. 2012. Improving Reading Skills through Effective Reading
Strategies. Procedia Social Behavioral Sciences. (70/1). Online at:
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/257718591.
Long, Rebecca. 2016. Benefits of Reading and Types of Reading. Activities for
Children and Reading Development Workshop. Online at:
https://www.librariesireland.ie.
Mikulecky, Beatrice S. 2008. Teaching Reading in Second Language. Online at:
https://www.longmanhomeusa.com.
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INTERPRETATION OF READING

Reading are often interpreted as reading aloud and silent reading.

Reading Aloud
Reading aloud is a very complex skill which involves understanding the
black marks first and then the production of the right noises. Most people, if they
are asked to read something aloud, like to have an opportunity to ‘glance over’
what it is they are being asked to read. In the actual process of reading aloud too
they usually find that their eyes are several words if not lines ahead of their
tongues.
It must be recognised that reading aloud is primarily an oral matter.
Reading aloud is closer to ‘pronunciation’ than it is to ‘comprehension’. So,
people read aloud have a bigger chance to do ‘barking at print’ instead of
comprehend the text. Reading aloud is mostly used for young learner in learning
reading. However, there are occasions where people are called upon to read aloud
in public such as a news reader, announcer, and even a teacher, they have to read
aloud in real-world situations.
The objectives of reading aloud are:
1. To enable the reader to read with correct pronunciation, articulation,
intonation, stress, pitch, pause, pace and rhythm.
2. To enable the reader to read with expressions .
3. To enable the reader to understand the meaning of spoken words, phrases and
sentences.
4. To test the reader’s knowledge of English words and phrases and whether
they know how to pronounce them, how to phrase words, how to articulate
clearly.
5. The main objective of reading aloud is to develop the reader a desire for silent
reading.

Silent Reading
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It is obvious that by far the greatest amount of reading that is done in the
world is silent. This is perhaps the nearest approach to the essence of reading; that
is comprehension.
The objectives of silent reading are:
1. To enable the reader to read silently, without making any kind of sound but not
moving even their lips, so that others are not disturbed.
2. To enable the reader developed reading speed and reading fluency.
3. To enable the reader to not only read but also to comprehend or understand
things, ideas or meanings side by side.
4. To expand the vocabularies of the reader.
5. One of the most important objectives of silent reading is to develop in the
reader the way to enjoy and recreate themselves.

REFERENCES
Broughton et all. 2003. Teaching English as a Foreign Language. London: The
Taylor and Francis e-library.
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READING ACTIVITY

1. Extensive Reading
Extensive reading is a highly individualized approach to reading
improvement. Students select their own books and read at their own pace. The
teacher should guide students to select books at a level of comprehension that
allows for “comprehensible input” (Krashen). The emphasis is on the quantity of
books read and the students’ enjoyment of their books. Students are never tested
formally on their extensive reading. However, they are required to talk about the
books they read in structured activities, including book conferences with the
teacher, brief oral reports to the class, and discussions in small group settings.
Extensive reading has been strongly recommended by Indian Education
Commission(1964-66). This type of reading is also known as rapid reading or
independent reading, The object of such reading is to cover the greatest possible
amount of text in the shortest possible time.
Extensive reading to read silently and quickly in order to understand the
subject matter and derive the meaning as a whole without the help of the teacher
and expand passive vocabulary. According to Thompson and Wyatt,” The main
purpose of extensive reading is the cultivation of taste for reading and it seeks by
encouraging the habit of visualizing what is read to make reading a form of visual
instruction.”
Extensive reading should be undertaken only when the students have
mastered at least a vocabulary of about 500 words, implying it should be started in
the middle classes and not prior to it, and the students should have developed the
ability to recognize words at sight.
Extensive reading: reading longer texts, usually for one’s own pleasure.
This is a fluency activity, mainly involving global understanding.

Objectives of extensive reading

The objectives of extensive reading are:
1. To develop the habit of self-study in the students.
2. To develop the taste for reading in the students.
3. To enable the students to understand the meaning of the given passage as early
as possible.
4. To increase the passive vocabulary of the students.
5. To develop the power of concentration.
6. To read for pleasure and recreation.

Benefits of Extensive Reading

Extensive reading has the following advantages:
1. It helps widen the vocabulary and grammar knowledge of the students.
2. It makes the students develop positive attitude toward reading.
3. It increases the students’ motivation to read more.
4. It promotes the students’ reading fluency.
5. It promotes the students’ impovement in writing.
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2. Intensive Reading
Intensive reading is a detailed study of the prescribed text in order to
train the students is an important aspect of language teaching, i.e. reading.
According to Jesperson,” To keep them occupied with the text repeatedly in such
a way that they do not lose sight in the meaning, so that they may thus become so
familiar with it at last that they know it almost or entirely by heart, without having
been directly required to commit it to memory.”
The object of intensive reading is to get deep and thorough understanding
of very short text (detailed comprehension of the text). Intensive reading is
typically concerned with texts of not more than 500 words in length. In
conclusion, the objective is to achieve full understanding of the logical argument,
the rhetorical arrangement or pattern of the text, of its symbolic, emotional and
social overtones, of the attitudes and purposes of the author, and of the linguistic
means that he employs to achieve his ends. The kind of activities are content study
reading and linguistic study reading.
Intensive reading: reading shorter texts, to extract specific information.
This is more an accuracy activity involving reading for detail.

Objectives of Intensive Reading

The objectives of intensive reading are:
1. The aim is to make a detailed study of words, phrases, word order and
expressions, thus entirely dealing with the sentence structure.
2. The aim is to enable the students to comprehend the text, its sense and meaning.
3. The aim is to enable the students to improve and command over English and
increase comprehension of the texts that they come across with expanding
vocabulary.
4. It encourages the students to gather information from the text.

Benefits of Intensive Reading

Intensive reading has the following advantages:
1. It improves the power of expression.
2. The students develop the skill of questioning and answering.
3. The students become interested in looking into details of the text they come
across as they find newer meanings being attributed to the otherwise ordinary
looking passages.

REFERENCES
Broughton et all. 2003. Teaching English as a Foreign Language. London: The
Taylor and Francis e-library.
Mikulecky, Beatrice S. 2008. Teaching Reading in Second Language. Online at:
https://www.longmanhomeusa.com.
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READING STRATEGY

To be able to efficiently extract and construct the text which is read,

some strategies need to be applied. Browns (2001, p. 306) explained that there are
at least ten strategies for reading comprehension. The first one is to identify the
purpose in reading. When reading a text, students sometimes do not know why
they read. As the result, the information that is accessed or understood retain for
temporary and tend to disappear easily. Efficient reading consists of clearly
identifying the purpose in reading something. By doing so,students know what
they are reading and looking for and able to leave out the potential distracting
information in the text.
The second is to use graphemic and patterns to aid in bottom-up
decoding (especially for beginning level learners). At the beginning levels of
learning English, students might find difficuties in learning to read when they
have to make correspondence between spoken and written English. In many cases,
students have become acquinted with oral language and have some difficulties in
learning English spelling conventions. Thus, students may need hints and
explanations about certain English orthographic rules and peculiarities such as the
short vowel sound in bat and the long vowel sound in late.
The third is to use efficient silent reading techniques for relatively rapid
comprehension. This strategy is usually applied for intermediate to advanced level
students due to their mastery of sufficient vocabularies and grammatical patterns.
The intermediate-to-advanced level students need not be speed readers, but we
can help them enhance efficiency by teaching a few silent reading rules like not
trying to pronounce each word, trying to visually perceive more than one word at
a time, and skip over a word which is not really crucial to global understanding.
The next strategy is skimming the text for main ideas. Skimming gives
readers the advantages of being able to predict the purpose of the passage, the
main topic, or message, and possibly some of the developing or supprting ideas.
The fifth is scannning the text for specific information. The purpose of scanning is
to extract specific information without reading through the whole text.
Then, using semantic mapping or clustering can also enhance students’
reading comprehension. Readers can easily be overwhelmed by a long string of
ideas or events. The strategy of semantic mapping, or grouping ideas into
meaningful clusters, helps the reader to provide some order to the chaos.
The seventh strategy is guessing when we aren’t certain. Learners can
use guessing to their advantage to guess the meaning of a word, a grammatical
relationship such as a pronoun reference, a discourse relationship, implied
meaning between the lines, a cultural reference and content messages. The next
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strategy is analyzing vocabulary in terms of what we know about it by looking for

prefixes, suffixes, roots, and grammatical contents which possibly have the clues
for that word.
The last two strategies for reading comprehension are by distinguishing
between literal and implied meanings and capitalizing on discourse markers to
processes relationships. These require the application of sophisticated top-down
processing skills. Implied meaning usually has to be derived from processing
pragmatic information. Many discourse markers in English signal relationships
among ideas as expressed through phrases, clauses and sentences. A good
understanding of such markers can greatly increase learner’s reading proficiency.

REFERENCES
Azis, Abdul & Warsono. 2018. The Effectiveness of Graphic Organizers and Gist
Strategies on Students with Different Reading Habits in Reading Comprehension.
English Education Journal (8/1). Retrieved from
http://journal.unnes.ac.id/sju/index.php/eej.
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Vina Mariana

TEXT A

LAUREN: Hi Jon. Thanks for seeing me today. I’m really struggling with my
project. I have to come up with a design for a water treatment system …
and I’m really not sure what I’m expected to do.
TUTOR: Well, as peer tutors we’ve been taught to follow a process in these
tutorials, OK? The first step is to look closely at the task instructions.
LAUREN: That sounds good … I’m also … well …we’ve been told to do some
research, but I don’t know where to start.
TUTOR: It’s always hard to start with. We’ve got about 45 minutes today … that
should give us some time to go over it … have you done much research
before?
LAUREN: No, this is my first project like this, and I’m really stressing out about
it. I went to a seminar about research at the start of the year, but I’ve
forgotten most of it.
TUTOR: Well, that’s fine, because the next step in our tutorial will be to consider
some common research strategies that you can use to get started. With
engineering, a lot of the projects you do are practical, so you can think
about how you can access other people’s write-ups of similar projects.
LAUREN: Yes, that sounds useful. How do I find those?
TUTOR: Well, there’s always the online databases, but you need to know what
search terms to use. So, can you think of any useful terms?
LAUREN: Umm ... Cameroon, I guess, and maybe grey-water?
TUTOR: Yes, good ... but those might not give you many hits. What about the
type of research? I’ve always found it helpful to search for case studies,
you know? There’s probably a whole lot of those on systems set up for
other villages in developing countries that you could look at. I’ve got a
couple here actually – they’re on different topics, but we can look at the
structure, and develop some useful ways to focus your research. Is there
anything else you’d like to look at today?
LAUREN: Um … hmm … I can’t think of anything right now. That all sounds
good.
TUTOR: Great – then the next step is to come up with an action plan – how long
have you got?
LAUREN: To finish the project? 4 weeks I think. It’s due on the sixth.
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TEXT B

GROUPS OF ANIMALS

One way to learn about the millions of animals in the world is to put
them in groups. By looking at animals in groups, we can see interesting points that
are the same or are different about animals. In this way, we can say that some
animals belong to certain groups.
People belong to a group that includes dogs, bears, horses, and monkeys.
Animals in this group all have hair. Babies come out of their mothers, not out of
eggs. And babies in this group of animals drink milk from their mother. Birds are
another group of animals. Not all birds can fly, but all birds lay eggs. Baby birds
come out of eggs, and their mothers give them food and care for them.
Some animals eat plants, some eat other animals, and some eat both.
Many that eat plants eat only one kind of plant, or one part of a plant. In this way,
different kinds of plant-eating animals can live together in the same place and
have enough food.
Animals come in all different shapes, sizes, and colors. Their bodies help
them get food and keep them safe from other animals that want to eat them. Many
birds have very good eyes. When they are flying, they can see fish in the water
and small animals on the ground. Dogs have great noses and ears. They can smell
and hear things that are far away. Bears are very strong. They can kill fish and
other animals with their arms. Small animals have ways to protect themselves
from bigger ones. Their bodies, for example, might be the same color as the
ground around them. This makes them hard to see. Also, some animals can make
their bodies look bigger and stronger than they really are. Then other animals do
not want to eat them.