CHAPTER II

THEORETICAL REVIEW

A. Reading

1. Definition of Reading

Reading is one of important skills in English which need to

understand the meaning that provide in text. The reader needs to be

able to figure out the author’s purpose presenting in the material,

comprehending some valuable information stated in the passage in

relation to comprehending the overall content of reading materials.

Reading is about understanding written texts, it is a complex activity

that involves perception and taught.1 When the reader read a text they

will get some information or knowledge that are decoded from the

text and grasp the content of the text. Johnson said that “Reading

integrates visual and non-visual information”. During the act of

reading, the visual information found on the page combines with the

non-visual information contained in your head to create meaning.2

Reading is normally linked with writing. This is a fundamental

1
Elizabeth S. Pang, et al. Teaching reading, (Switzerland:International
Academy of Education. 2003). P 6.
2 Andrew P. Johnson, Teaching Reading and Writing: A Guide Book
Tutoring and Remediating Students. (United Kingdom: Rowman and Littlefield
Education, 2008). P.4.

11
12

characteristic of the target academic situation in which students’ are

typically reading books and journal, noting, summarizing,

paraphrasing, and the writing essay.3 Reading is an interactive

process that take place between the text and the reader’s processing

strategies and background knowledge.4 according to the definition

above, reading is an important skill which process the readers to be

active in understanding the meaning of what they read, understand

written text or not and interpret the information into the reader’s

understanding appropriately.

2. Types of Reading

In this part of discussion, the researcher discuss about the type of

reading. According to Patel and Jain below are types of reading5:

a. Intensive Reading

According to M.F. Parel , intensive reading is related to

further progress in language learning under the teacher’s guidance.

Intensive reading will provide a basis for explaining difficulties of

structure and for extending knowledge of vocabulary and idioms.

3 Siti Solihatin Nisa. The Influence KWLH Method on Students’ Reading

Comprehension Ability. (Loquen English Studies Journal. Vol.5. No. 2. 2012). P.
193.
4 Farah Yunita. The Effectiveness of Cooperative Integrated Reading and
Composition (CIRC) Technique in Teaching Reading on Narrative Text. (Loquen
English Studies Journal. Vol. 11. No.1. 2017). P. 44.
5
Patel M.F, & Praveen M. Jain, English Language Teaching (Method,
Tools, Techniques), (Jaipur: Sunrise Publisher &Distributors, 2008), P.117.
 13

It ill also provide material for developing greater control of the

language in speech and writing. Intensive reading not only be read

but will discussed in detail in.

target language, sometimes analysed and used as a basis for

writing exercises. At this stage, some teacher fall into the

monotonous pattern of setting a section of reading material for

homework preparation every night. Then they begin the lesson

each day by asking student to translate what they have prepared,

sentence by sentence around the class. Sometimes sections of

intensive reading material may be set for preparation before hand,

the students being supplied with question to think about before

they come to class. The ability of students to talk and write in the

foreign language about the material chosen for intensive reading

will be very dependent on the teacher’s choice of texts. Intensive

reading is text reading or passage reading. In this reading the

learner read the text to get knowledge or analysis. There are few

characteristics of intensive reading such as this reading helps

learner to develop active vocabulary, teacher play main role in this

reading, linguistic items are developed, this reading aims at active

use of language, intensive reading is reading aloud and on

14

intensive reading speech habit are emphasized and accent, stress,

intonation and rhythm can be corrected.6

Reading aloud also play important role in teaching of English.

Teacher should know that the training of reading aloud must be

given at primary level because it is the base of words

pronunciation. The advantages of aloud reading such as it enables

learner to develop the skill of reading very well by speaking or

expressing ideas, it enables learner to develop the skill of

pronounce very well, and it makes reading very enjoyable while

teacher uses reinforcement during reading. The disadvantages of

aloud reading such as over crowed class is very big problem. The

teacher can not provide sufficient opportunities to all students and

at earlier stage reading aloud is very necessary. If enough training

of reading aloud is not given at primary level, it will be difficult to

read aloud at secondary stage.

b. Extensive reading is aloud reading

According to M.F. Parel , Extensive reading material for

extensive reading will be selected at a lower level difficulty than

that for intensive reading. The purposes of extensive reading will

be to train the student to read directly and fluently in e target

6
Patel M.F, & Praveen M. Jain, English Language Teaching (Method,
Tools, Techniques), (Jaipur: Sunrise Publisher &Distributors, 2008), P.117.
 15

language for enjoyment, without the aid of the teacher.7 Extensive

reading can be made the basis for oral reports, to the rest of the

class, or full class discussion. It may be the source for written

composition in which students deal with specific issues arising

from the material in the book. On occasions, the class may be

divided into groups to read interrelated material. Each group may

prepare some part of the project on some present a group report to

the rest of the class. This type of class project gives a point and

purposes to extensive reading by building reading practice into a

matrix of purposeful activity. Thus, the attention of the reader is

directed toward the extraction of information from the text, rather

than toward the reading process itself.

Extensive reading assignments may direct students to articles

to current interest in foreign language magazines or newspaper. To

ensure that students do not become bogged down in reading which

is too complicated, the teacher will be well advised to discuss the

relation of articles to be read, with due regard to the special

interests of the reader. Extensive reading is the reading for

pleasure. The reader want to know about something the reader

does not care about specific or important information after

7
Patel M.F, & Praveen M. Jain, English Language Teaching (Method,
Tools, Techniques), (Jaipur: Sunrise Publisher &Distributors, 2008), P.119.
16

reading. Usually people read for to keep them update. Few

Characteristics of Extensive Reading are it helps learner to

develop to active vocabulary, extensive reading is silent reading,

in extensive reading the subject matter is emphasized, in the

extensive reading the learners play main role because they have to

ask for measures, in extensive reading the idea can be developed,

the aim of extensive reading is to enrich learners’ knowledge, and

through extensive reading the good reading habit can be

developed.

According to M.F. Parel, silent reading is a very important

skill in teaching of English. This reading should be employed to

increase reading ability among learners. Silent reading is done to

acquire a lot of information. 8Teacher has to make them read

silently as and when they are able to read without any difficulties.

It is kind of habit in which learner are enabled to read without any

audible whisper. How to make silent reading interesting Teaching

silent reading is very important skill because this is stage where

the knowledge of learners starts to flight.

8
Patel M.F, & Praveen M. Jain, English Language Teaching (Method,
Tools, Techniques), (Jaipur: Sunrise Publisher &Distributors, 2008), P.122
 17

The selection of reading material should be authentic. How

the teacher can make his teaching silent reading effective such as

teacher should tell about the topic first to the learners. He should

motivate students. Teacher should not allow the students to read

the text, teacher should not allow the students to murmuring while

reading, the subject matter should be interested and effective and

selected from the reading material developed for it and eclectic

approach can be used by teacher for better comprehension and

understanding.

The advantages of silent reading such as this reading makes

students very active and accurate, silent reading concentrates the

attention of learners toward subject matter and he learns naturally,

it saves time because this activity is done at a time. All students

participate together in this activity at a time, it is very useful to

develop the skill of reading fast and this skill plays main role to

increase the knowledge of students. The disadvantages of silent

reading such as this technique is not useful at earlier stage of

language learning, through this skill on can learn the

pronunciation, in this skill the learner can cheat the teacher if

subject matter is not interested, and only bright and intelligent

students can learn this skill but average students learn it hardly.
18

3. Reading Comprehension

Reading is a communicate process requiring a series of skills. As

such reading is a thinking process rather than an exercise in eye

movements. Effective reading requires a logical sequence of thinking or

thought patterns, and these thought patterns require practice to set them

into the mind. They may be broken down into the following seven basic

processes:1

1) Recognition: the readers knowledge of the alphabetic symbols.

2) Assimilation: the physical process of perception and scanning.

3) Intra-integration: basic understanding derived from the reading

material itself, with minimum dependence on past experience,

other than knowledge of grammar and vocabulary.

4) Extra-integration: analysis, criticism, appreciation, selection and

rejection. These are all activities which require the reader to

bring his past experience to bear on the task.

5) Retention: this is the capacity to store the information in

memory.

6) Recall: the ability to recover the information from memory

storage.

1
Naf’an Tarihoran, Reading I Basic Reading Skills (Serang: Dinas Pendidikan
Provinsi Banten, 2012), 5.
 19

7) Communication: this represent the application of the information

and may be further broken down into at last 4 categories, which

are:

a) Writing communication

b) Spoken communication

c) Communication through drawing and the manipulation of

objects

d) Thinking, this is another word for communication with the

self

According to Widdowson, “Reading is a process of matching

information in a text to internally activated information. Thus, reading is

not information processing but rather information interpreting-what we

understand from a text depends in part on what we knew previously, as

well as on how we allow the text to extend and refine our knowledge of

the topic. Reading is the interaction of the text and the reader ”9

There are many definition of reading comprehension. Grellet said,

“Reading comprehension is to understand written text means extracting

the required information from it as efficient as possible”.10 In addition,

“reading comprehension is the process of constructing meaning by

9
Fraida Dubin and David E Eskey, Teaching Second Language Teaching Reading
For Academic Purposes ( California : Addison Wesley Publishing Company, 1986 )28..
10
Francoise Grellet, Developing Reading Skill, Great Pritain (Cambridge
University Press), 3.
20

coordinating number of complex process that include word reading, word

and word knowledge, and fluency”11

Comprehension means relating what we don't know, or new

information, to what we already know, which is not a random collection

of facts but a "theory of the world" in each of our heads called "cognitive

structure."Comprehension is always directed and controlled by the needs

and purposes of an individual and therefore crucially depends on that

individual's having acquired what William Grabe calls a "critical mass"

that is, an adequate amount of what is sometimes called "background

information" or, more technically, "schemata," a subject to which I will

return below. Thus reading comprehension is most likely to occur when

students are reading what they want to read, or at least what they see

some good reason to read.12

According to the explanation above that, reading comprehension

involves taking meaning to a text in order to obtain meaning from the

text. The ability to comprehend printed or written material, however

involves much more than recognizing words, knowing their appropriate

meanings, and reading phrases and sentences. Reading comprehension is

11
Jannete Klingneret al, Teaching Reading Comprehension to Students with
Learning Difficultes (New York: The Guldford Press, 2006), 2.
12
Fraida Dubin and David E Eskey, Teaching Second Language Teaching Reading
For Academic Purposes ( California : Addison Wesley Publishing Company, 1986 ), 6
 21

a complex process involving many different types of higher level

thinking.

Catherine said reading comprehension as the process of

simultaneously extracting and constructing meaning through interaction

and involvement with written language. It consists of three elements: the

reader, the text, and the activity or purpose for reading.13

a. The Reader

The reader brings to the act of reading his or her cognitive

capabilities (attention, memory, critical analytic ability, differencing,

visualization); motivation (a purpose for reading, interest in the

content, self-efficacy as a reader); knowledge (vocabulary and topic

knowledge, linguistic and discourse knowledge, knowledge of

comprehension strategies); and experiences.

b. The Text

The features of any given text have a large impact on

comprehension. While reading, the reader constructs various

representations of the text that are important for comprehension.

Those representations include the surface code (the exact wording of

the text), the text base (idea units representing the meaning of the

13
Catherine Snow, Chair, Reading for Understanding Toward an R&D Program in
Reading Comprehension (Arlington: RAN, 2002), xiii 11-15 element of reding
comprehension
22

text), and the mental models (the way in which information is

processed for meaning) that are embedded in the text.

c. The Activity

The reading activity involves one or more purposes or tasks,

some operations to process the text, and the outcomes of performing

the activity, all of which occur within some specific context. The

initial purpose for the activity can change as the reader reads. That is,

a reader may encounter information that raises new questions and

makes the original purpose insufficient or irrelevant. Processing the

text involves decoding the text, higher-level linguistic and semantic

processing, and self-monitoring for comprehension—all of which

depend on reader capabilities as well as on the various text features.

There are three types of comprehension processes are taught:

literal, inferential, and metacognition.14

a. Literal comprehension is defined as extracting the details of the

text and recognizing the author’s purpose. Students must have a

clear understanding of the material, as presented by the author. In

addition, they must be able to recognize the way in which the

author orders information throughout the text. Mastery of the

14
Cathy Collins Block, et al. Comprehension Process instruction (New York
London: The Guildford Press, 2004), 3
 23

literal comprehension process is usually a prerequisite for

inferential comprehension.

b. Inferential comprehension requires students to create meaning

from the text and move beyond the author’s purpose by combining

the textual information with their own thoughts. This form of

comprehension is not a one-step process. It entails the creation of a

complete mental picture that enables students to think intently

about a text, relate it to their personal experiences, and connect it

to other information

c. Metacognition. In general, metacognition involves thinking about

one’s own thinking or controlling one’s learning. Metacognitive

processes help students (1) remove road blocks that interrupt

comprehension and (2) reflect on what they have learned and what

they want to learn next. Students must receive explicit instruction

on metacognition or they will not engage in these processes..

4. Teaching Reading

Teaching is a process doesn’t only give the information from

the teacher to the students. Harmer said that teaching is not an easy

job, but it is a necessary one and can be very rewarding when we see

our student’s progress and know what we have helped to make it

happen. It is true that some students’ can be difficult and stressful at

24

times, but it is also worth remembering that at its best teaching can

also be extremely enjoyable.15 Brown explained that teaching cannot

be defined apart from learning. Teaching is guiding and facilitating

learning, enabling the learners to learn, setting the conditions for

learning.16From the definition above, we can define teaching as

helping, facilitating, and how to learn and get something or

knowledge. Harmer explain that There are six principles behind the

teaching of reading:

Principle 1 : reading is not a passive skill

Reading is an active occupation. It will success when the

teacher guides the students to know what word means, see the picture

the words are painting, understand the arguments and make the

students active.

15
Jeremy Harmer. 2007. How To Teach English. Edinburg Gate: Pearson
Education Limited, P. 23.
16 H. Douglas Brown. Principles of Language Learning and Teaching. 2000. Longman: A
Pearson Education Company. P. 18.
 25

Principle 2 : students need to engaged with what they are

reading.

Students who are not engaged with the reading, not actively

interested in what they are doing. Thus, the students should enhance

their reading.

Principles 3 : students should be encouraged to respond to the

content of a reading text, not just to the language.

It is important to study reading texts for the way they use

language, the number of paragraphs they contain and how many

times they use relative clauses. But the meaning, the message of the

text, is just an important and we must give students a chance to

respond to that message in some way.

Principles 4 : prediction is a major factor in reading

The students should predict what they are going to read by

seek book cover, photograph, and headlines in the text.

26

Principles 5 : match the task to the topic

Once a decision has been taken about what reading text, the

students are going to read. The teacher gives a task for the students

based on the topic that has been read by the students.

Principles 6 : Good teachers exploit reading texts to the full

Good teachers integrate the reading text into interesting class

sequences, using the topic for discussion and further the tasks not

only ask students to read text full sentences, words, description etc.17

5. Assessing Reading

According to Brown there are several designing assessment

task in assessing reading.18 They are:

1. Designing assessment task: perceptive reading

Assessing of basic reading skills may be carried out in a

number of different ways.

a. Reading Aloud

The test taker sees separate letters, words, and/or short

sentence and reads them aloud, one by one, in the presence of

17 Jeremy Harmer. How To teach English. 1998. (Edinburg Gate: Pearson Education Limited.
2001. P. 70
18
H. douglas brown, language assessment principle and classroom practice,
(New York: San Fransisco State University, 2004).p.185
 27

an administrator. Since the assessment is of reading

comprehension, any recognizable oral approximation of the

target response is considered correct.

b. Written Response

The same stimuli are presented, and the test-taker’s

task is to reproduce the probe in writing.

c. Multiple choice

Multiple choice response are not only a matter of

choosing one of four or five possible answer. Other formats,

some of which are especially useful at the low level of

reading, include same/different, circle the answer, true/false

choose by the letter, and matching.

2. Designing assessment tasks: selective reading

Some of the possible tasks you can use to assess lexical and

grammatical aspect of reading ability.

a. Multiple choice (for form-focused criteria)

By far the most popular method of testing a reading

knowledge of vocabulary and grammar is the multiple choice

format, mainly for reason of practically. It is easy to

administer and can be scored quickly.

28

b. Matching task

At the selective level of reading, the test taker’s is

simply to respond correctly, which makes matching

appropriate format.

c. Editing task

Editing for grammatical or rhetorical errors is a widely

used test method for assessing linguistic competence in

reading.

d. Picture-Cued Task

In the previous section we looked at picture-cued task for

perspective recognition of symbols and words.

3. Designing assessment task: interactive reading

a. Cloze tasks

The word cloze was coined by the educational

psychologists to capture the gestalt psychological concept of

closure, that is the ability to fill in gaps in an incomplete

image (visual, auditory, or cognitive) and supply (from

background schemata) omitted details.

 29

B. SQ3R Technique

1. The definition of SQ3R

Brown defines SQ3R technique consist as one effective of

technique forapproaching a reading text. SQ3R technique, a process

consists of the following five steps:19

1) Survey: skim the text for an overview of main ideas.

Glance over the heading in the chapter to see the few big

points that will be developed. Also read the final summary

paragraph if the chapter has one. This survey should not take

more than a minute or two and will show the main ideas around

which the discussion will cluster. This will help you organize the

ideas as you read them later.

2) Question: the reader asks question about what he or she wishes to

get out of the text.

The following step is, look at the first heading in the chapter.

Turn it into a question reading. This will give you a specific

purpose for reading the material and thereby increase a

comprehension. It will bring to mind information already known,

thus helping you to understand that section more quickly. The

19
H. Douglas Brown.Op.Cit. P. 315
30

question will also make important points stand out at the same

time the explanatory detail is recognize as such.

3) Read: read the text while looking for answers to the previously

formulated questions.

Read to answer that question, i.e. to the end of the first headed

section. This is not passive plodding along each line, but an

active search for the answer.

4) Recite: reprocess the silent points of the text through oral and

written language.

Once you have read in initial section, look away and try to

recite (recall) the answer the question, using your own words and

example. If you can do this, it means that you understand the

material.

5) Review: assess the importance of what one has just read and

incorporate it into long-term associations.

In the last step answer the major purpose question then look

over answer and all part of the chapter to organize information.

After you do this, you can summarize the information learned by

drawing flow charts, writing a summary, participating in a group

discussion, or by studying for a test. technique is suitable for the

textbook reading assignment, but it is also can be used for other

 31

passage with the adjusted procedures, and this technique can be

used for any level of learner with the exception as stated before.

2. Procedures of SQ3R Technique

As a technique, SQ3R technique has an implementation

guide. In order to make this technique appropriate for junior high

school curriculum, the researcher tries to modify this technique

based on the original technique as follows:

Table 1.2

Procedures Of SQ3R Technique

NO Steps in Functions Activities done

SQ3R

1 Survey Gathering the survey is

necessary surveying through the

information to title, the pictures,

focus and formulate the introductory

goals. paragraph, the

headings and

subheadings, and the

concluding paragraph

to form ideas and to

get the main points of

32

the text. Surveying

the text also helps the

reader to get a greater

understanding of the

text.

2 Question Helping the Question is

students’ mind converting selected

Engage and headings into

concentrate. questions, in This

step gives a purpose

for

reading the text in

more detail so that

students should be

ready for a more

detail study of the

text.

Questioning also

causes the reader to

search the answer to

the question.
 33

3 Read Filling in the read is reading to find

information around the answers to the

the mental questions. created in

Structures have step 2

been building. also describes the

reading step of SQ3R

as an active search

for the answers in

which the students

read the text to find

the answers to the

questions in step 2.

4 Recite Retraining students’ recite is restating the

Mind to answers in step 3._by

Concentrate and one’s own words and

Learn as it reads. then writing the

response. In this step,

students

may write brief notes

in their notebook for

later review and study

34

5 Review Refining mental review scanning the

. Organization and taken notes and

begin building observing

memory the relationship

between both the

main points and the

supporting details. In

this

step, the students also

write a summary

about the text. As

stated in Ganske.

summarizing is

one of the activities

in activeness of

good reader. This last

step is useful for

long-term

remembering
 35

In conclusion, the SQ3R technique is a good technique for

reading longer passages which have a lot of information to be

studied. However, in order to carry out this technique

successfully, the students should have the ability for

understanding the text structure and taking the main idea of the

text, without such ability, the use of SQ3R be unsuccessful.

Moreover, beyond the students’ ability to understand the text

structure and taking main idea, the teacher should also introduce,

explain, illustrate the SQ3R technique clearly in order to make

the students completely understanding this technique. SQ3R

compensates for inherent deficiencies in the information

processing system and forces readers to use their processing

systems in productive manner. If secondary and post-secondary

students are made aware of this, they may be more likely to use

SQ3R and, consequently, to profit from its use.

3. The Advantages SQ3R Technique

Based on the theories about SQ3R that, the researcher

concluded that the technique has advantages and disadvantages.

The advantages are as follows :

a. It can increase students’ curiosity and motivation in reading.

36

b. It helps the students to aim the material to be read, this can be

an effective way to comprehend reading material because they

read the text purposefully.

c. It helps the students to study independently.

d. It makes the students feel easier in comprehending the

material, especially Textbook.

According to Feldt and Hensley SQ3R is a useful technique to

engage any written information fully from a text. It helps readers

to create a good mental framework of a text, to set reading goals,

and to fix information in the readers’ mind. The primary benefit

of SQ3R is that it enables the reader to determine the organization

of text material and the need for intelligent selection of

information while reading.

In line with Feldt and Hensley, Huber states that the SQ3R

technique helps the students to read independently and develop

their comprehension skills such as determining main ideas, self

questioning, summarizing, note-taking and setting reading goals

or purposes.20

Another benefit of implementing the SQ3R technique is that

using SQ3R technique is worthwhile in terms of time and effort.

20
Huber, J.A. (2004). A closer look at SQ3R. Reading improvement, 41(2), 108-
112
 37

It is designed to help students to get an overview of the text,

analyse the topic before they read, and ask question based on their

curiosity to the topic, and select the important information in

periodic review. Students become more active participants in

reading the text. This technique also allows the students to get the

better and faster performance on exams.21

4. The Disadvantages Of SQ3R

a. There is less interaction between the teacher and students,

thus, the teaching and learning activity become passive, and

it is against the recent curriculum which demands the

teaching and learning activity become more active.

b. This technique will not be valid for the students with low

proficient in vocabulary, because they will spend more time

for the difficulty in finding the meaning of each word and

sentence.

c. The students will regard this technique as a complicated

technique just for reading narrative text due to the steps it

has.

21
Caverly, Orlando, & Mullen (2000). A closer look at SQ3R. Reading
improvement, p.105-