Concept and Types of Reading Comprehension

Concept of Reading Comprehension

In order to get the information out of the text, there are two aspects in reading. The first one is recognizing the words as well as the form and comprehension. Comprehension can be said as the nature of reading because the main objective in reading is to get the messages or information. Comprehension is the capability of getting on the words, sentences and connecting to the text[1]. Comprehension is the process of getting meaning from text which is connected as in sentences and paragraphs. It involves the one‟s insight vocabulary and considering and making sense[2]. The ability to understand or comprehend something is needed in order to acheive the goal in reading. Most of knowledge and information can be gained by comprehending the text.

Comprehension, the process of construct the rational meaning of words or sentences, becomes the part of reading activity. The goal of reading can be fulfilled if the understanding of the text is built. In order to understand and learn something from the text, learning to read is a must since reading is part of our daily basis[3]. Without comprehension, reading is pointless since comprehension is the process of constructing meaning of words or sentences[4]. The reason for reading is to get or understand something through the text. The process of understanding the text is often called as a comprehension. The effort to understand something from the text e have read is the main point in reading. Because of this reason, comprehension and reading can be seen as a continuum activity. Reading is indeed useless without comprehension. It means without comprehension we cannot say this activity is reading. Thus, the central of reading is comprehension.

The ability of processing the text and understanding the meaning is called reading comprehension. It can be defined as all of the processes which the meaning of the text needs to be understood. Reading comprehension involves the activity of extracting and establishing the meaning at the same time which can be obtained through the collaboration of the written language[5]. Reading comprehension was seen as making sense of a written language through exchanging the ideas among the reader and the text[6]. Reading comprehension involves the process of making sense by organizing the process of word reading, word, world knowledge, and fluency[7]. Reading comprehension acts as one of the essential part of reading after word recognition. It can be said that comprehension is the most complex of reading aspect. Reading comprehension becomes complex because it is not only involve the vocabulary insight but also the ability to interpret the information.

Thus, it can be inferred that an active process which involves the activity of constructing, making sense, or understanding the words and sentences through interaction and involvement with written language is called reading comprehension. Comprehension becomes the most important part in reading, because reading and comprehension is something which cannot be separated. It works as a continuum process.

There are some features which should be involved in assessing the students‟ reading comprehension. They are:

1. Main idea, 
2. Expression/idioms/phrases in context, 
3. Inference (implied detail), 
4. Grammatical features, 
5. Detail (scanning for a specifically stated detail), 
6. Excluding facts not written (unstated details), 
7. Supporting idea(s), 
8. Vocabulary in context[8].

They are many reasons why providing an assessment to the students is necessary. In this case, this assessment provides the information about the students‟ skill level and achievement in reading comprehension. These features involve main idea, expression/idioms/phrases in context, inference (implied detail), grammatical features, detail (scanning for a specifically stated detail), excluding facts not written (unstated details), supporting ideas, and vocabulary in context.

Types of Reading

Based on the types of classroom reading performance, the reading activity is divided into five types. They are perceptive reading, interactive reading, selective reading, intensive reading and extensive reading.

1. Perceptive reading

Understanding something or figuring things out is the main activity in perceptive reading. This activity usually involves the identification of words, punctuations, and others or matching pictures. Perceptive reading tasks dealing with the elements of a unit of language, such as letters, words, word, punctuation, and other graphemic symbols[9]. The focus of perceptive reading lies on the form such as recognizing the words, sentences, and punctuation rather than the meaning. 

2. Selective reading

Selective reading requires the students to recognize word, grammatical, or discourse features of language within a very short sentence or short paragraph. The focus of selective reading is the form of the words and grammatical aspects of language. In this activity involves the process of sorting things out, or selecting the important information by careful choice. 

3. Interactive reading

By using both knowledge of word structure and existing knowledge to interpret the text they read are what interactive reading activity is. Interactive reading requires reading short sentences of several paragraphs of text to one page or more wherein the students are connected to the text26. It focuses on the interaction between the readers and the text. By using interactive reading may discourage the students‟ focus on learning how to interpret specific words and gain the students interest in reading.

4. Intensive reading

The focus of intensive reading is the language. Thus, the dictionary often used in this activity. Intensive reading involves studying the text carefully in every words and grammatical by contrasting, examining, decoding and maintaining every expression which have found in the text. This activity involves the reader‟s concentration in order to comprehend the detail information of the text. It may be the sentence, the paragraph and the whole text. The focus of intensive reading is the language and the grammatical feature. 

5. Extensive reading

In order to review the ideas related to the text, summary is often used. Intensive reading is often considered as a complex activity. The focus of extensive reading is usually the message which is conveyed by the writter. In palmer‟s conception of extensive reading, the purpose of learning reading through extensive reading was studying the language not the content, not only seeking information but also could be for pleasure purpose[10]. In contrast of intensive reading, extensive reading is an activity which involves the reader‟s own pleasure because the focus of this activity is the content of the text not the language. 

Based on the explanation above, there are five types of reading such as perceptive reading, selective reading, interactive reading, intensive reading, and extensive reading. Synthesizing strategy involves the activity of merging the author‟s ideas and the readers‟ ideas or existing knowledge into one so that the new conclusion or idea will be born. This is in line with an interactive reading, because both synthesizing strategy and interactive reading make connection to what the readers already know. Thus, it can be inferred that synthesizing strategy is related to the interactive strategy

References

1. Andrew P. Johnson. 2008. Teaching Reading and Writing: a Guidebook for Tutorin and Remediating Student. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield Education. p. 4
2. Elizabeth S. Pang, et. al. 2003. Teaching Reading. Chicago: SADAG. p 143. Sylvia Linan Thompson and Sharon Vaughn. 2007. Research Based Methods of Reading Instruction: for English Language Learners. Alexandria: ASCD. p. 113
4. Elizabeth S. Pang, et.al. Op. Cit. p. 14
5. Catherine Snow. 2002. Reading for Understanding: Towards an R&D Program in Reading Comprehension. Arlington: RAND. p.11
6. Diane McGuinness. 2004. Early Rading Instruction: What Science Really Tells Us about How to Teach Reading. Massachusetts: The MIT Press. p. 234
7. Janette K. Klinger, Sharon Vaughn, Alison Boardman. 2007. Teaching Reading Comprehension to Students with Learnig Difficulties. New York: The Guildford Press. p. 2
8. H. Douglas Brown. 2003. Language Assessment: Principle and Classroom Practices San Francisco: Longman. p. 206
9. H. Douglas Brown. Op. Cit. p. 189
10. Richard R. Day and Julian Bamford. 1998. Extensive Reading in the Second Language Classroom. Cambridge: Cambridge Language Education. p. 5