1.

CHAPTER ONE INTRODUCTION

This chapter is designed to introduce the interest of the research and the whole
setting of it. It covers the background of the research, the research question, the
purpose of the research, the significance of the research, the product specification for
the development, the limitation of the research and the definition of the key terms used
in this research.

1.1 Background of the Research

Reading proficiency is one of the key elements in a quality education and thus it

is supposed to receive much attention. As it is claimed by the National Reading Panel at

Washington (2000) which has highlighted phonemic awareness, phonics instruction,

comprehension, computer technology and reading fluency.

Since reading proficiency has been an issue to seek better strategy to improvise

huge number of works, studies and researches are developed in many ways to achieve

the key elements of successful education. Specifically, to achieve that is to cover one of

the key elements in reading proficiency – that is reading comprehension; one that has

received much attention at recent years. In a basic way to improve reading

comprehension is then to develop reading fluency.

Among the most successful reading fluency strategies developed is one that was

initiated by Samuel in 1979, namely Repeated Reading Method. A large number of

studies have been carried out to confirm the effectiveness of this method. They covered

various subjects including students across grades, proficiencies, and a range of ages

moreover handicapped student. It had been emphasized by the article of repeated

reading written by Sarah Dowhower in 1997 confirmed that at least 200 studies proved

the effectiveness of the strategy. The method was amazingly affecting the practice of
educational practitioners during that 2 decades after it first-published. Furthermore, this

method was in ongoing development until recently.

The repeated reading method is largely implemented to help the struggling

students, first or second graders (regarded as English as mother tongue or first

language), and even students with disabilities in first language (Samuels, 1979;

Dowhower, 1989; National Reading Panel, 2000; Blevins & Lynch, 2000; Rasinski, 2004)

and in the second language / foreign language contexts (Grabe, 1991; Anderson, 1999;

Tagushi and Gorsuch 2002; Taguchi, Gorsuch and Takayasu-Maas M, 2004).

The implementation of repeated reading is predominantly investigated through

oral repeated reading from initial study done by Samuel (1979) up to recently works by

Tagushi and Gorsuch (2002) and Taguchi, Gorsuch, and Takayasu-Maas, M. (2004). By

carrying out the investigation through oral procedure, it allowed and eased the

measurement of the fluency by Curriculum Based Measurement Test (Bouguebs, 2007).

The first investigation by the present research to broad references about

Repeated Reading found that none of them tried to apply repeated reading into specific

setting which the present research tries to achieve. However, the researcher respectively

relied on some considerably relevant empirical studies (Taguchi and Gorsuch, 2002;

Taguchi, Gorsuch and Takayasu-Maas, M, 2004) to establish closer look at probably

new settings to this developmental research. Therefore, the present research will be

carried out in the design of research and development to extend the study to what are

expected to be developed.

To establish the development is to establish the case of English reading test in

National examination in Indonesia where the study is aimed at. Out of controversy of

National Examination (UN) in Indonesia, the basic reason of why THIS research is trying
to develop such instruction is to help students prepare to pass this requisite-graduate

examination through real developed reading skill. This is dilemmatic to claim so but in

many factual practices, innumerable ways have been developed and invented by private

and informal courses to prepare the examination with lack of responsibility toward the

students future reading skill (i.e. providing shortcut or reading-less-key answering

strategy). To address that issue, the research for which tries to emphasize that the

importance of preparing students towards examination is not simply to set students

readily to answer each question correctly on the national exam but more importantly the

understanding of how important the reading skill is and how it affect the student’s future

need. Furthermore, the education is more than just a matter of passing exam.

To collect the data about students’ reading problems, the research will employ

observational study in preliminary stage to describe the case. For the present research

will focus on national exam at Junior High School (JHS) or Lower Secondary School,

ninth-grade students of JHS will be respondents regarding to the problem identification

and confirming general assumption about shortcut for answering national exam

questions. To establish how they prepare the examination or closely look at what

strategy they used to do in performing reading exam, and ultimately how they develop

reading skill after all is key of the preliminary questions. Some other queries which are

probably indirectly related to the issue will also be forecasted to help design and develop

the instruction based on the learner’s expectation. Also, as the designed used for the

development, those students will also be participants for the field tests.

Effectiveness of the repeated reading method has been tested in many settings

and researched in broad facets. Therefore, this research will not jointly measure the

matter but will focus more on the developmental instruction in form of supplementary

student workbook. Then, its ultimate aims are to extent fundamental questions such as
how the developed instruction and material can help students to effectively prepare their

reading skill, how the workbook may help the student learn more independently. Hence,

to brief the case, it can well be covered into how can the developed instructional material

is able to measure and develop themselves independently as well as put them into the

actual reading text typically used in the national exam.

This research will be carried out in four-D design of research and developmental

approach (Thiagarajan, 1974). The reason is because the 4D design is suitable with the

desired development. For the flexibility of the design, 4D allows the researcher to

transform the common practice instruction of the repeated reading i.e. one-on-one

setting (one learner with one adult/teacher). It is so due to the need of counting the

number of word correct (WC or WCPM in Timed Repeated Reading) thus someone to

time the reader (the learner). Moreover, the strategy suggests the assistant of the reader

to help the learner decode better. The outcome to this research is hoped to develop the

initial instructional material of reading strategy on national exam which enables the

learner to use and learn independently. This way is eventually hoped to contribute to

developmental study in between extensive reading and repeated reading (non-assisted

setting) theoretically and practically.

1.2 Research Question

a) How is an instructional self-regulated reading exercises which using

Repeated Reading Method is tailored to be Non-Assisted Timed

Repeated Reading practice (self-monitoring) able to improve students’

reading comprehension skill throughout reading fluency?

b) How is the design, content and construct of instructional non-assisted

repeated reading in self-regulated reading exercise fitting the need and

 encouraging interest of the students to improve their reading

comprehension as well as to put on the real exposure of reading material

used in national examination?

1.3 Purpose of the Research

The ultimate purpose of the present research is to develop a Non-Assisted Timed

Repeated Reading, a redesigned repeated reading instruction in EFL silent reading for

the Junior High School student’s self-preparation heading the reading exam on National

Examination. Therefore, it is necessary to state derived purpose to achieve that

throughout; (a) finding out that comprehension test in the secondary natural effect upon

repeated reading method reliable and valid to measure student’s fluency improvement in

silent reading, (b) finding out that instructional non-assisted timed repeated reading in

self-regulated silent reading exercise will help Junior High School students improve their

reading skill both in fluency and comprehension, (c) carving out the initial design of

instructional self-regulated reading for Junior High School National Examination English

reading preparation.

1.4 Significance of the Research

The present research is designed to develop the instruction of repeated reading

in the EFL silent reading comprehension. Differently, the present research that will be

applied in silent reading context is hoped to attract many other researches in the shared

contexts to develop this very few existing interest of the repeated reading and use it for

real educational purpose (reading exam). This is significant because a further analysis

and effectivity of such strategy in its second effect (comprehension) seemed to still hard

to find nevertheless its significance to EFL context. The dubious issue among
Indonesian English teachers is that the belief that they could encourage their students’

comprehension simply through reading comprehension strategy and skill which is in

commonplace will not be appropriate for some fundamental reasons (the comprehensive

justification is given in Chapter 2).

Regarding to factual condition of student reading problem, skill to answer text-

type question, the product of the present research is hoped to significantly help student

of Junior High School develop their reading skill through supplementary textbook which

is designed for self-learning. Though many limits we understand too early to claim that

the design of this supplementary book is best at the first place to prepare student’s

reading comprehension skill through so-called reading fluency, the present research is at

least providing ground to extent the contextualized field and practicality of the strategy in

applied and needy situation as the surge of issue of UN and any other reading

assessment especially in EFL context.

1.5 Product Specification

The development of instruction of repeated reading is what the present research

tries to develop such instruction to shift from assisted-reading to non-assisted reading,

from oral reading fluency to silent reading comprehension in EFL context. It will be

bound with materials of reading test on national examination in form of a supplementary

book in which the user or the student may practice and improve their reading

comprehension gradually. In addition, the book will be constructed on the three

components; (1) varied instruction, guide and prompting, (2) reading text and

comprehension question, (3) self-monitoring record. In addition, few features will also be

added in relation to the development of comprehension strategy, for example

vocabulary-corner and reading tips though not the main focus.

1.6 Limitation of the Research

The current study has several limitations:

a. In the present study, the oral reading fluency skill is not measured. In the real

exposure of targeted skill use specifically on the national examination is silent

reading. As the contextual need, it is not particularly concerned with describing the

result of this type of improvement but rather look at how student gradually develop

the reading comprehension skill and extensively their growing interest in reading.

b. The implementation of the development which will extend over six weeks is

considered too short to conclude a strong reliability. In result, therefore, such

generalization to student’s reading comprehension improvement must be done with

caution.

c. The present research result then is limited to attain the modelling as one of key

elements over varieties of repeated reading for it will be done extensively.

Meanwhile, an alternative like feedback or non-counted modelling outside of the

scope (i.e. parent or others) is not covered to any explanation to the present

research. Above all, it is done in silent reading so that any phonemic feedback or any

related matter considered unnecessary.

1.7 Definition of Key Term

To make a clear context of what is meant by any terms used in the

present research, the below definitions are hoped to clearly state the mean of

specific understanding.
a. Timed Repeated Reading or TRR is one of strategy to apply the instruction

of repeated reading by setting the fixed time in the beginning that most of the

time requires an assistant in its application.

b. Non-Assisted Timed Repeated Reading or NATRR is an instructional

material mainly developed in the present research that is adapted from timed

repeated reading and done in silent reading of EFL context. Non-assisted

means reading independently without any assistant of teacher or others.

c. Silent Reading is an activity of reading for the implementation of the method

that is done silently or voiceless. It is unlike oral reading that is voiced or read

aloud.

d. WCPM stands for Word Correct Per Minute. A common measurement used

in the study of repeated reading by broad researchers. It is based on the

CBM or curriculum based measurement to assess oral reading fluency. It is

part of accuracy and is largely correlated to speed reading.

e. Supplementary textbook means the student book which is not intendedly

provided for classroom use or for personal use.

f. Self-regulated, self-learning, self-monitoring and non-assisted are

phrases that share similar meaning in this research and are used

interchangeably.

g. Decoding is the one of two processes which human’s brain concerns while

reading. It is way of brain retrieving data or making sense between

orthography or what is read and what is in human linguistic memory.

h. Abbreviation: L1 means first language or mother tongue, L2 means second

language, FL means foreign language, EFL means English as Foreign

Language.