Nama :Hilda Rahman

Nim 233140065
Prodi :Tadris Bahasa Inggris

Mid Test Reading

A. Reading Prosses
This discussion is on reading process which deals with three model of
reading processes, top-down, bottom-up, and interaction models. Then, cognitive
process of reading is discussed to underlie reading process. The next important
thing is about reading strategies that is the strategies used by the reading learners.
This includes a discussion on word identification strategies used by learner based
on some theories and previous researches. The next important discussion deals
with the factors that can affect one’s reading performance and which include
internal and external factors. The theories dealing with the condition of text is also
discussed, that is about the concept of cohesion and readability of text. These are
important to discuss because it is believed that they are the factors that can
influence reading performance. The process of reading according to some theories
and approaches is discussed. The discussion is divided into three sections, that is,
bottom-up process, top-down process, and interaction process. It is said that
comprehension begins at the word level, from where decoding synthesizes. This
word identification includes both a “top-down” and a “bottom-up” process which
was once insisted in the great reading debate. In other words, reading actually
involves the process of bottom-up and top- down which is called interaction.
1. Bottom-Up Process
It is widely accepted that reading is begun from getting meaning from
written symbols. The reader imagines transferring sounds into letters to get the
meaning out. This view is strongly influenced by audio-lingual method which
claims that reading a second language was viewed primarily as an

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adjunct to oral language skills (Fries, 1963, 1972). According to this theory
reading entailed the application of automatic habit, induced response to written
text. Reading is considered essentially a mechanical decoding process, at this
process, a reader is assumed to decode or translate the printed symbol in the text
by moving his eyes, recognizing letters, combining them to form words, then
combining the words to form phrases, clauses, and sentences of the text. Possibly,
this “word by word’’ process occurs only when the reader encounters an unknown
word (Clarke and Silberstein, 1979). It is also believed that processing for the
“beginner” may not be the same as it is for the skilled reader (Walker, 1983). In
addition, in all reading processes, there are eight levels at which attention may be
focused (Biggs and Telfer, 1987: 253-254).
a. features, such as the loops, lines and curves that make up letters.
b. letters themselves.
c. sounds, which are associated with letters and letter combinations.
d. words, encoded both visually and phonemically (not one or the other).
e. chunks, or combination of words into meaningful phrases which give a unit of
sense.
f. ideas, a statement of meaning at the sentence level. For the first time the level
of meanings is not direct association of what is on the page, but an abstraction
and synthesis.
g. main ideas, which are a distinction of what the text has to say: the gist, which
is constructed out of all the ideas in the passage.
h. the theme, which is inferred, going beyond the main ideas and generalizing
them to a new level of the abstraction.
2. Top-Down Process
According to Harris and Smith (1986) the ability to construct meaning is
based on the reader’s previous experience with a topic, familiarity with the key
concept, and knowledge how language works, even a fluent reader searches the
page for cues to meaning. This is not a precise, letter-by-letter, or even word-by-
word process but rather by predicting and anticipating

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meaning. Goodman (1973b: 180) even claims that reading is not a process of
combining individual letters into words, and strings of words into sentences, from
which meanings spring automatically. These views have recently been
characterized by several reading experts as a concept-driven, top-down pattern in
which higher level process interact with and direct the flow of information
through, lower-level process (Stanovich, 1980).
3. Interractive Process
The two models of reading process, bottom-up and top-down, have been
discussed so far. Initially, it seems that there is a tendency to view the introduction
of a strong top-down processing perspective as a substitute for 7 the bottom-up,
that is the decoding view of reading (Carrell, 1992).
Reader’s background knowledge and the knowledge of content schemata
play more important role than the language knowledge in reading process.
However, according to some studies on schema theory, such as that of
Rumelhart’s (1980), it is stated that the efficient and effective reading requires
both topdown and bottom-up strategies operating interactively.
According to this model, both bottom-up and top-down models seem to
occur simultaneously in a reading process Furthermore, Perfetti (1975) has
provided more direct evidence that reading comprehension may suffer as the
result of devoting too much attention to decoding activities.
The readers were periodically interrupted by a memory probe as they read a
passage to themselves. In silent reading, the poor decoder tended to have better
memory than the good decoders for words that immediately preceded the probe.
In other words, a reader relies too much on what is written and which is called
bottom up process of reading. To conclude, it is understood that reading is a
psycholinguistic process in that it starts with linguistic surface representation
encoded by a writer and ends with meaning which the reader constructs. The three
models of the reading process described above are still relevant to the focus of the
present study, that is, dealing with identifying reading process.

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 Of the three models, the interaction models is most appropriate as a model
of reading process, although schema availability alone is not sufficient condition
for adequate comprehension. Any reading strategy should be derived from this
model.
A reader, in fact, employs the reading process of both top-down and bottom-
up models. There is an essential interaction between language and thought in
reading. The writer encodes thought as language and the reader decodes language
to thought. This interactive model is adapted as the theory underlying the study.

B. Cognitive Process in Reading

Reading is actually a cognitive process where a reader engages in the mental
process of knowing, learning, and understanding things. explains that
traditionally, cognition is an intelligent process and the product of human mind.
This image includes such higher mental process type of psychological entities as
knowledge, consciousness, intelligence, thinking, imagining, creating, generating
plans and strategies, reasoning, inferring, problems solving, conceptualizing,
classifying, and relating. In addition, metacognition includes four aspects. (1)
Knowing when you know (and when you don’t know) (2) knowing what it is that
you know in order to comprehend, (3) knowing what it is that you need to know
in order to comprehend (4) knowing the usefulness of intervention strategies when
you know you don’t understand. These four aspects will be discussed further and
the discussion is mostly based on the basic ideas.

C. Schemata in Reading Comprehension

The role of schemata has been discussed briefly to explain the process of
reading in both top-down and interactive processes. Most people will agree that
schemata is something in mind that it is so abstract that people cannot identify
accurately. One can only identify its existence by examining

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the behavior of the people who have the schemata, how they think and react.
A schema is a data structure for representing the generic concepts stored in
memory. Furthermore, a schema theory is basically a theory of about knowledge.
It is a theory about how knowledge is represented and about how that
representation facilitates the use of the knowledge in particular way Thus, it can
be inferred that all knowledge is grouped into units which are called schemata.
According to this theory, schemata or background knowledge are used to
make sense of reading text. It is intrinsic to a reader that every reader can have
different concepts: those underlying objects, situations, events, sequences of
events, actions, and sequences of actions It is apparent that reader’s schemata play
an important role understanding a text. It is expected that a reader have enough
background knowledge to have optimal comprehension.
This is important because a reader cannot rely only on the information from
a text, something intrinsic to the text, for the text itself does not carry meaning.
There should be an interaction between those factors, something intrinsic to the
reader and to the text.

D. Reading Strategy
Reading strategy should not be confused with other strategies. Learning
strategies also constitute the steps or actions consciously selected by learners
either to improve the learning of the second language, the use of it, or both. They
include strategies for identifying the material that needs to be learned;
distinguishing from other material if needed, grouping it for easier learning
(grouping vocabulary by category into nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, and so
forth), repeatedly engaging oneself in contact with the material (through
classroom tasks or the completion of the homework assignments), and formally
committing to memory when it does

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 not seem to be acquired naturally (whether through root memory techniques such
as repetition, the use of mnemonics or some other memory technique. So for
example, the strategies used in speaking are different from those used in
reading, or receptive from productive skills. This implies that to identify learner’s
strategies we have to start from what language skill they are learning. Similarly,
the reading strategies the students use will vary with the nature of reading
tasks. For example, literature has different characteristics than
discursive language Reading strategies are the mental processes that readers
consciously choose to use in accomplishing reading task, These strategies
have some characteristics, i.e., planning,
competition, conscious manipulation and movement toward a goal.
Learning strategy, on the other hand, is any attempt used by a learner to
make learning easier, faster, more enjoyable, more self-directed, more effective,
and more transferable to new situations.
Seven reading strategies thatnare used by good readers. The summary of
these strategies is presented below:
1. Flow-charts and hierarchical summaries.
2. Titles.
3. Embedded headings.
4. Pre-reading questions.
5. Story specific schema from general schema.
6. Imagery.
7. Perspective.
Reading strategies can also indicate how readers conceive a task, what
textual cues that attend to, how they make a sense of what they read, and what
they do when they do not understand.
Reading strategy is actually not the main focus of the study, but rather the
strategies used by readers when they encounter problems when they read English
texts.

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 It identifies what they actually do to solve their reading problems It is
believed that when apply good reading strategies, they can be independent and
skilled readers.

E. Word Identification Strategy

Reading is actually an activity dealing with words in a text. The reader’s
intention is focused on how to capture the meaning of the words in a text. The
question of how words are identified is clearly central to understanding reading.
The main problems faced by learners when reading in a foreign language is to
deal with unknown words.
These words are usually of low frequency and technical because they occur
infrequently in a narrow range of texts. Learners usually use their own strategies
to cope with difficult words. A learner who reads much less may record many
more words because some learners have different styles of approaching the tasks.
If the book to be read is more difficult, learners may have different strategies. One
might read the whole passage quite rapidly, stopping only to mark each difficult
word as comes across it. Then, reads through the whole passage again, this time
writing each words on list, guessing its meaning, and writing the guess down.
Then looks up in the dictionary before going on. In relation to word
identification strategy, Ndomba in Nation (in press) mentions four useful steps to
follow when meeting a new word. The first step is guessing from context. Step
two is getting the dictionary definition. This is useful if students are made
responsible for all commonly used forms of the word. The next step is copying,
saying aloud, and memorizing the original sentence. This original sentence should
be used only to provide contextual clues to meaning or to verify dictionary
definition. The last step is using it in sentences. These four steps are appropriate
for vocabulary development and for enriching vocabulary size, but are not
necessary useful when reading extensively.

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 Some studies show that the keyword method has mainly been found to be
effective with individual presentation rather than with group presentation.
Moreover the superiority of this key word strategy over no- strategy conditions
was found to decrease in long-term memory. While the results for semantic
processing methods have demonstrated beneficial effects over long time period.

F. Factors Affecting Comprehension

Discussing the factors that affect comprehension is important in relation to
identifying the students’ reading problems. By discussing this we can see the
position of the present study and serves as a map of comprehension process. It can
also help explain the students’ reading problems.
These factors are basically divided into two categories. The first one
comprises five factors which are internal to the students, that is, background
experience, language abilities, thinking abilities, affection (interest, motivation,
attitudes, beliefs, feelings), and reading purposes. The other one includes two
factors external to the reader and it includes the nature of the text to be read and
physical factor Background experience, known as background knowledge, plays a
very important role to understand a text. if a reader does not know or never
experience about the topic discussed in the text, a reader will have a serious
problem to understand the text and will not be able to follow the story nor predict
the end of the story. Thus, a reader must have enough background experience on
the topic that enables him or her to bring personal meaning to the events and
feeling of the story. Based on the nature of background knowledge, it is clear that
not all readers can comprehend a story in exactly the same way because each has
different background experience on which to draw.
The second factor is the ability to analyze the language as a means to
convey ideas of the writer. in other words, comprehension depends on the reader’s
knowledge about the language.The third factor is the ability of

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the reader to think. Having background experience and linguistic knowledge is not
enough. The reader should be equipped with the ability to think or reasoning. In
this case, the reader’s intellectual development is important to understand the flow
of the story Comprehension alsodepends on the reader’s past experience to engage
in critical thinking about the story in the text. At the same time, he must also have
a sense of story that guides him in the search for elements such as setting and
event.
The third factor that could also cause comprehension is related to the
reader’s ability to understand his own emotion.
The fifth factor, which external to the reader, is clarity of the text. The text
should be in accordance with the reader’s proficiency level, that is, the text is not
too difficult or complicated to read.
The last factor is about physical condition, that is the place or situation
where reading takes place. This includes proper lighting and room temperature,
legible reading matter, and well-rested reader. This factor really affects student’s
performance in comprehending a text and the process of reading.
Finally, it is apparent that the result of comprehension depends on those
factors. If one of them does not avail, the process of comprehension will not run
smoothly. Thus reading learner or teacher should pay attention to these factors
and find possible way and compensate if one of them is not found.