Investigating the reading skill challenges of the first-year non-major students of English = Tìm hiểu về những thách thức đổi mới kỹ năng đọc hiểu của sinh viên20150227.PDF

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TABLE OF CONTENT
page
PART ONE: INTRODUCTION
1
1. Rationale for the study
1
2. Aims of the study
2
3. Significance of the study
2
4. Scope of the study
2
5. Method of the study
3
6. Organization of the study
3
PART TWO: DEVELOPMENT
4
CHAPTER ONE: LITERATURE REVIEW
4
1.1. Reading and Reading Comprehension
4
1.2. Reading process
5
1.3. Context and the role of Context
7
1.4. Schema Theory
9
1.5. Reading Comprehension Levels

10
1.6. Reading Comprehension Skills
14
1.6.1. Reading for specific information
17
1.6.2. Finding the main ideas
17
1.6.3. Guessing vocabulary from the context
19
1.6.4. Making inferences
20
CHAPTER TWO: THE STUDY
22
2.1. Research Question
22
2.2. Participants
22
2.3. Data Collection Instruments
22
2.4. Data Collection Procedure
24
2.5. Analytical Framework
24
2.6. Data Analysis and Discussion
27
2.6.1. Making inferences
28
2.6.2. Finding the main ideas
30
2.6.3. Guessing vocabulary from context

32

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2.6.4. Reading for specific information
34
PART THREE: CONCLUSION
36
3.1. Major findings
36
3.2. Implications
37
3.3. Limitations for the study
37
3.4. Suggestions for further study
38
References
39
Appendices

Appendix 1: Sample of test 1
Appendix 2: Keys of test 1
Appendix 3: Sample of test 2
Appendix 4: Keys of test 2
Appendix 5: Results of making inferences
Appendix 6: Results of finding the main ideas
Appendix 7: Results of guessing vocabulary from context
Appendix 8: Results of reading for specific information

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LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS


HTCC: Hatay Community College
EFL: English Foreign Language
ESL: English Second Language

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LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES


Tables
Table 1: Test items by reading sub-skills
Table 2: Results of making inferences
Table 3: Results of finding the main ideas
Table 4: Results of guessing vocabulary from the context
Table 5: Results of reading for specific information

Figures
Figure 1: Schematization of the Top-down Approach
Figure 2: Levels of the Barrett Taxonomy
Figure 3: Major Aspects of Levels of Comprehension
Figure 4: Results of the four reading sub-skills

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PART ONE: INTRODUCTION
1. Rationale for the study
At present, Vietnamese people consider English to be an important foreign language,
and thus, a great number of students study it. In the context of global integration in the world,
in general, and in Viet Nam in particular, the demand for learning English gets stronger and
stronger. English is regarded as an indispensable tool for academic and career advancement.
It can’t be denied, therefore, that English is now the dominant language, especially in
language teaching programs in many schools.
In teaching and learning English as a foreign language in Viet Nam, reading seems to
be the most important and useful activity in language classes. Of the four language skills,
reading has always received a great deal of attention, which is emphasized by Carrell (1981:
1) that “For many students, reading is by far the most important of the four macro skills in a
second language, particularly in English as a second or foreign language”. It is quite true in
the case of Hatay Community College (HTCC) context, where English has been the foreign
language dominating in the teaching and learning programs for 33 years. Also, in the same
picture, reading is the most important skill for students to master because reading texts exist
new words and grammar, which are main parts in their test papers.
Reading is an active process and the readers need to use reading skills to make them

attain good reading comprehension. According to Anderson (1999: 1), he said “With
strengthened reading skills, ESL/ EFL readers will make greater progress and attain greater
development”. It can’t be denied that reading skills support significantly to readers’ reading
comprehension. The better the reader uses reading skills, the better he/ she gains reading
comprehension. However, the fact is that it is very difficult for a reader to master all reading
skills because there are various sub-skills of reading comprehension. Therefore, (s)he is
suggested to master some basic reading skills in order to understand the author’s thought.
Firstly, he/she makes sure that he/she has no problems with vocabulary while reading, it
means (s)he gains word recognition skills and word meaning skills. Secondly, (s)he has good
ability to identify facts and details in the text. Thirdly, (s)he catches the main ideas of the
text so (s)he will understand the author’s message underlining printed words. Once readers
lack one of these skills, they will have trouble with the text they are dealing with, even they
fail to understand what the author wants to convey. Unfortunately, it is the fact that many
students at HTCC are struggling with reading because they lack one of these basic reading

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skills, which makes them cope with a lot of difficulty in attaining their reading
comprehension. From this fact, it is necessary to find out challenges to reading skills in the
English classrooms at HTCC so as to promote students to get their better reading
comprehension.
As a teacher of English, I myself think that it is essential to do a research on
challenges to reading skills my students encountered with the hope that the students can
improve their reading comprehension. As a result, I decide to choose the thesis title:
“Investigating the reading skill challenges of the first year non – major students of
English”.

2. Aim of the study
The aim of the study is to investigate difficulties the first year non – major English
students at HTCC deal with reading skills. Therefore, the objective of this study is:
- to uncover what challenges to reading sub – skills the first year non – major students

of English at HTCC encountered.
It is hoped that the findings from this study will be of some benefits to both teachers and
students at HTCC.

3. Significance of the study
This study is significant for some reasons. Firstly, the study uncovers challenges to
reading sub- skills the students had to suffer. Secondly, this study would help teachers and
students realize a need to change current English teaching and learning method. Finally, it
would enable students to improve their reading skills significantly in order that they can
obtain their better reading comprehension.

4. Scope of the study
Dealing with challenges of all reading sub-skills is too broad for a study of this size.
Therefore, the study is only designed to examine such sub – skills of reading comprehension
as reading for specific information, finding the main ideas, guessing vocabulary from the
context and making inferences that the first year non – major students of English at HTCC
are encountered with in reading comprehension.


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5. Method of the study
With the aim of finding out challenges to some reading sub-skills, quantitative method is
used in this study. Two tests are instruments to collect the needed data.

6. Organization of the study
This minor thesis is organized into three parts: Introduction, Development and Conclusion
Part one: Introduction: presents the rationale for the study, the aims, the method, significance,
the scope of the study as well as the organization of the thesis.
Part two: Development: consists of two chapters

Chapter 1 discusses the literature review relevant to the research topic including the reading
and reading comprehension, reading process, context and the role of context, schema theory,
reading comprehension levels, reading comprehension skills.
Chapter 2 presents the research methodology of the study, which focuses on research
question, the participants, the instrument, data collection procedure, analytical framework,
and data analysis and discussion.
Part three: Conclusion: offers major findings, implications and provides limitations for the
study, also some suggestions for future study.







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PART TWO: DEVELOPMENT
CHAPTER ONE: LITERATURE REVIEW
This chapter aims at providing a theoretical background to the study. The review of the
issues most relevant to be the focus of the study will be included: reading and reading
comprehension, reading process, context and the role of context, schema theory, reading
comprehension levels, and reading comprehension skills.
1.1. Reading and Reading Comprehension
Reading has been defined differently by linguists, psychologists, educators and second
language researchers, but an exact definition of reading really causes much confusion.
Different authors define the term in different ways.
According to Smith (1985: 102), he defines “reading is understanding the author’s thought”.
It means that the readers “read the author’s mind not the author’s words.” If the readers only
understand the printed words in the text without understand the author’s mind, their reading
is useless. Because the meanings of a word depend much on the context in which it occurs,

the readers shouldn’t understand the word in isolation.
Goodman (1971: 135) claims that reading is “psycholinguistics process by which the reader,
a language user, reconstructs, as best as he can, a message which has been encoded by a
writer as a graphic display”. Goodman thought that this act of reconstruction is viewed as “a
cyclical process of sampling, predicting, testing and confirming.”
William (1986: 3) shares the same view on reading, especially on the act of reconstruction as
Goodman. He argues that “written texts, then, often contain more than we need to
understand them. The efficient reader makes use of this to take what he needs, and no more,
to obtain meaning.”
Harmer (1989: 153) views reading from a different perspective. He considers reading a
mechanical process that “eyes receive the message and the brain has to work out the
significance of the message”. It means that he focuses on two actions that dominated by the
eyes and the brain of the process.

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Definitions of reading are numerous, none can certainly captain all the ideas and feature of
what reading is because the act of reading is not completely understood nor easily described.
However, all the definitions above reveal their common feature, that is the nature of reading.
In the most general terms we may say that reading involves the reader, the text, and the
interaction between the reader and the text.
Reading doesn’t mean to pronounce words in the text but to understand what the author’s
thought. Therefore, the purpose of the act “reading” is to gain reading comprehension which
can be understood as the ability to get the required information from the text as efficiently as
possible. According to Grellet (1981: 3), he considers reading comprehension or
“understanding a written text means extracting the required information from it as efficiently
as possible”. Swam (1975: 1) also shares “a student is good at comprehension” if “he can
read accurately and efficiently, so as to get the maximum information of a text with the
maximum of understanding”. In the same view, Richard and Thomas (1987: 9) points out
“reading comprehension is best described as an understanding between the author and the
reader”.

Though these opinions are not exactly the same, they all show that reading comprehension is
the process in which the readers, as they read, can recognize the graphic forms of the reading
text and understand what is implied behind these forms. In other words, reading
comprehension is what allows the reader to interact with the text in a meaningful way.
From these views on reading and reading comprehension, the definition of Smith (1985)
seems to be preferable, that is “reading is understanding the author’s thought.” His view
shows the strong relationship between reading and reading comprehension, which is
considered a hand in hand relationship, reading without comprehension or understanding is
not reading. If a reader reads the text without reading comprehension, he/ she is “barking at
print”, and his/ her reading is meaningless.
1.2. Reading process
There are three models of reading process, they are: bottom-up, top-down and interactive.

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Bottom-up models have been well-known for a long time, it became the basis of a large
number of reading schemes (Cambourne 1979). In the bottom-up models, the reader begins
with the written text (the bottom), and constructs meaning from letters, words, phrases and
sentences found within, and then processes the text in a linear fashion. In the process of
meaning interpretation, the language is translated from one form of symbolic representation
to another (Nunan, 1991). It can be seen that the important feature of bottom-up models is
text-driven models of comprehension. Hence, the reader plays a relatively passive role as
he/she builds comprehension by moving eyes from letters to letters, words to words, phrases
to phrases, and sentences to sentences so as to identify their exact meaning. It means that the
reader process text by first recognizing lower-level units and then repeatedly synthesizing
lower-level units into more complex units.
In short, the bottom-up models tend to be linear as it starts with the printed stimuli and
proceed to higher – level stages, one step after another. The basic for bottom-up processing
is linguistic knowledge of the readers. However, everything has two sides. Samuels and
Kamil (1988: 301) show some shortcomings of the model, they say that the model lacks
feedback, which makes it “difficult to account for sentence-context effects and the role of

prior knowledge of text topic as facilitating variables in word recognition and
comprehension”.
The second model is top-down models, in which the reading process moves from the top, the
higher level of mental stages down to the text itself. Top-down models assume that the
reader is singularly important and processed text by first hypothesizing about the content of
the text and then selectively sampling the text to confirm or refute her hypothesis. In other
words, the reading process begins with the highest-level unit possible meaning in the mind
of the reader- and deals with lower-level units. The schematization of this approach is
provided by Cambourne (1979: 41)
Past experience, language
intuitions, and
expectations

Selective
aspects of print

Meaning

Sound,
pronunciation if
necessary

Figure 1. Schematization of the Top-down Approach

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This approach emphasizes the interaction between the reader and the text. The reader proves
his/ her active role in the reading process by bringing to the interaction his/ her available
knowledge of the subject, expectations about how language works, motivation, interest and
attitudes towards the content of the text.
Apparently, the strong points of top-down models outnumber those of the bottom- up as the

reader – the centre of the reading process proves his active role. However, these models are
still revealed certain shortcomings by some researchers because they sometimes fail to
distinguish adequately between beginning readers and fluent readers. Moreover, a purely top
– down concept of the reading process makes little sense for a reader who can be stymied by
a text containing a large amount of unfamiliar vocabulary. Besides, in top-down models, the
generation of hypotheses would actually be more time- consuming than decoding (Stanovich,
1980)
The third type is interactive models of the reading process. This type derives from the
perceived deficiencies of both bottom – up and top – down models. Hayes (1991: 7)
proposes “in interactive models, different processes are thought to be responsible for
providing information that is shared with other processes. The information obtained from
each type of processing is combined to determine the most appropriate interpretation of the
printed pages”. The Hayes’ view is understood that if the reader wants to gain reading
comprehension as much as possible, he/she has to apply different processes (bottom-up or
top-down models) at the same time in order to catch information from the text. Therefore, in
interactive models, both the reader and the text play important role in reading.
In sum up, the popularity of interactive models shows that interactive models can maximize
the strengths and minimizes the weaknesses of the separate use of either bottom- up or top-
down models. However, when dealing with a text, which best models depend on the purpose
of reading.
1.3. Context and the Role of Context
There are different understandings of context because it is an allusive and fruid concept.
Lyons (1995: 266) shares that “Context is relevant to the determination of what is said”. It is
understood in a broad sense, however, Nation and Coady (1988: 102) put it in a narrower

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sense that “context is also referred to as morphological, syntactic and discourse information
in a given text, which can be classified and described in terms of general features”.
Dycus (1997) cites Bialystok’s view on context that context exists in relation and proportion
to the reader’s implicit knowledge (intuitive and unanalyzed knowledge of the second

language), other knowledge (knowledge of other languages and world knowledge), and
context (linguistic and physical aspects of a text which provide clues to meaning). From this
view, context is clearly not an absolute presence in a text, but is created by the reader, and is
therefore influenced by the reader’s linguistic and world knowledge.
According to Nguyen Hoa (2000: 39), he seems to agree with some scholars that “context
seems just to be the minimal stretch of language that helps to understand what is written or
spoken”. This view is understood in a narrow sense, that context as co-text because context
consists of context of situation, extra-linguistic factor or physical environment, and co-text is
regarded as linguistic factors or linguistic environment in which an expression is used.
However, Nguyen Hoa (2000: 40) refers that Halliday understood the term of context in a
broad sense. He developed the concept of context in terms of field, tenor and mode of
discourse. Field of discourse refers to the subject of discourse, which is what the speaker
talks. Tenor of discourse regards the interpersonal relations between the participants. And
mode of discourse is concerned with the channels of the ways by which discourse is
conducted.
In fact, context has been shown to play a role in the identification of words in text. Studies of
context effects have established, among other things, that words are recognized better in
context than out of context, and that simple word association enhances word recognition.
Context, at a basic level, can be seen as information and in turn, information is that which
reduces uncertainty. In reading, context can be defined as information that reduces
uncertainty about the elements of a text, their meanings, and the meaning of a text as a whole.
Traditionally, context and meaning were seen as a given, existing fully and completely in
any properly written text, and the key to using it was linguistic knowledge. This view is
claimed by cognitive theorists to place too much emphasis on linear, bottom-up process.
Today, different definitions of context include language knowledge and emphasize the role

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played by high-level knowledge sources and personal experiences. It is important to
distinguish between two types of context such as local context and global context. Local
context is provided by intrasentential information while global context is given by

intersentential to discourse level information and world knowledge.
1.4. Schema Theory
It is believed that background plays an indispensable part in reading comprehension and an
influential factor in facilitating reading comprehension. The role of background in
comprehension of texts is explained and formulized in a theoretical model known as schema
theory.
Schema theory explains how people’s existing knowledge affects comprehension. It means
that the theory emphasizes the importance of the reader’s knowledge in understanding the
text. Schema is very abstract, Orasanu (1986: 33) claims that “A schema is an abstract
structure or knowledge. It is structured in the sense that it indicates relations among
constituent concepts. It is abstract in the sense that one schema has the potential to cover a
number of texts that differ in particulars”.
According to Silberstein (1994:8), he identifies two kinds of background knowledge: formal
schemata and content schemata. Formal schemata often known as textual schemata, refers to
knowledge of rhetorical structures and linguistic conventions of written texts. It consists of
knowledge of how texts are organized and the understanding that different types of text use
language structures, vocabulary, grammar, level of formality/ register differently. Content
schemata involves knowledge of the world beyond texts, “including the subject-matter of the
text” (Carrell, 1983a). Alderson (2000: 34) divides content schemata further into background
knowledge, which is directly relevant to text content and topic. It can be said that schema
plays an important role in text comprehension because text comprehension requires an
interaction of two models of information processing which are known as bottom-up (or text-
based) and top-down (knowledge-based) processing. In top-down processing, readers draw
on their own intelligence - the predictions they can make, based on schemata they have
acquired - to understand the text.

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It is apparent that schema theory reflects important roles of prior knowledge in reading
comprehension. A reader comprehends a text when he/she is able to activate or construct a
schema. When processing a reading text, he/she makes use of their prior knowledge or

schemata to interpret what the message is conveyed in the text. Adam and Bruce (1982) give
an emphasis on the role of schemata, they express “without prior knowledge, a complex
object such as a text is not just difficult to interpret; strictly speaking, it is meaningless”.
1.5. Reading Comprehension Levels
Reading is a thoughtful process, it embraces the idea of levels of comprehension. Different
readers can respond to text at different reading comprehension levels because their ability to
get the information from the text and their prior knowledge are not similar. With relation to
levels of reading comprehension, language specialists don’t measure reading comprehension
in the same way. Barrett (1968) gives five reading comprehension levels which were cited
by Jack Richards in Reading in a Foreign Language, Alderson & Urquhart, Longman, 1984.
The Barrett taxonomy dealt with reading and listening as well. It is a good guide to the levels
at which we are trying to measure comprehension. Five reading comprehension levels are
illustrated as follow










+ Level 1: Literal comprehension
Literal comprehension is the lowest level and requires the reader to be able to tell what the
book says, it means that the reader concerns with information stated explicitly in the text.
The skills needed for this level of comprehension include the following:
Literal Comprehension
Reorganization

Inferential
Comprehension
Evaluation

Appreciation
Figure 2: Levels of the Barrett Taxonomy

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1.1 Recognition: Readers locate specific information stated explicitly
- Recognition of details
- Recognition of main ideas
- Recognition of a sequence
- Recognition of comparisons
- Recognition of cause and effect relationships
- Recognition of character traits
1.2 Recall: Readers produce from memory ideas stated explicitly
- Recall of details
- Recall of main ideas
- Recall of a sequence
- Recall of comparisons
- Recall of cause and effect relationships
+ Level 2: Reorganization
At this level, readers have their ability to analyze, synthesize, and organize information that
has been stated explicitly in the text. This level comprises such reading skills as:
2.1 Classifying (placing persons, things, and places into groups)
2.2 Outlining (organizing a selection in outline form)
2.3 Summarizing (paraphrasing or condensing a selection)
2.4 Synthesizing (consolidating information from more than a single source)
+ Level 3: Inferential comprehension
Readers can use information explicitly stated along with their own personal experience as a

basis for conjecture and hypothesis. When a reader gains comprehension at this level, (s)he
can have ability of:
3.1 Inferring supporting details (suggesting additional facts that might have made the
selection more informative, interesting or appealing)
3.2 Inferring main ideas (providing the main idea when it is not stated explicitly)
3.3 Inferring sequence (conjecturing about what might have happened or will happen
when no explicit statements are included in the text)
3.4 Inferring comparisons
3.5 Inferring cause and effect relationships (inferring the author's intentions,
motivations, or characters)

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3.6 Inferring character traits (hypothesizing characteristics of persons)
3.7 Predicting outcomes (predicting what will happen as a result of reading part of
the text.
3.8 Interpreting figurative language (inferring literal meanings from the figurative
use of language).

+ Level 4: Evaluation
Readers can give their judgments and decisions concerning value and worth.
4.1 Judgments of reality or fantasy (judging whether an event is possible)
4.2 Judgments of fact or opinion (distinguishing between supported and unsupported
data)
4.3 Judgments of adequacy and validity (judging whether information in a text agrees
with other sources of information)
4.4 Judgments of appropriateness (determining relative adequacy of different parts of
a selection in answering specific questions).
4.5 Judgments of worth, desirability, and acceptability (decisions of good, bad, right
and wrong)

+ Level 5: Appreciation
It is the highest reading comprehension level at which there is psychological and aesthetic
impact of the text on the reader.
5.1 Emotional response to content (verbalizing feelings about the selections)
5.2 Identification with characters or incidents (demonstrating sensitivity to or
empathy with characters or events)
5.3 Reactions to the author's use of language (responding to the author's ability to
created language)
5.4 Imagery (verbalizing feelings produced by the author's selection of words that
produce visual, auditory, etc. sensations or images)
However, Vacca & Vacca (1989: 155) show levels of comprehension in terms of 3 major
aspects. They are presented in the diagram below:

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The literal level is another way of saying readers can “read the lines” of content materials.
They can stay with print sufficiently to get the gist of the author’s message. In simple terms,
a literal recognition of that message determines what the author says.
The second level of comprehension-interpretation-requires the reader to work out ideas that
not stated, to read between the lines. The interpretive level is laced with inferences about the
author’s intended meaning. How the reader conceptualizes implied ideas by integrating
information in light of what they already know is part and parcel of the interpretive process.
Recognizing the thought relationships that the author weaves together helps the reader to
make inferences that are implicit in the material.
The highest level- applied level is undoubtedly akin to the act of discovery. It underscores
the constructive nature of reading comprehension. Also, Standal & Betza (1990: 80-83)
share the same view with Vacca & Vacca (1989), they range reading questions due to three
comprehension levels: Literal level, Inferential level and Higher-Than-Inferential Level. In
general, all three views on reading comprehension levels clearly reflect levels of readers’
understanding. And of the three views, the study would follow Barrett Taxonomy because

Levels of Comprehension
Literal
Interpretive
Applied
Getting the
information
gist
Integrating
information and
making inferences
Using information
to express opinions
and form new ideas
Reading the lines
Reading between
the lines
Reading beyond
the lines
Figure 3: Major Aspects of Levels of Comprehension

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the taxonomy is divided into five small levels, each level includes reading sub-skills, which
makes the investigator easy to measure students’ reading comprehension.
1.6. Reading Comprehension Skills
There have been numerous attempts to list the skills in reading comprehension. According to
Karlin, R and Karlin, A.R. (1988: 43-44), they make a list of skills which are categorized
into five groups:
+ Word recognition skills:
1. use of contextual clues: Context is associated with meaning, and it is meaning, as
well as visual elements, that aids readers in recognizing words or identifying

unknown words. Contextual clues are related to syntactical clues.
2. phonic analysis: studying letter-sound relationships as a means of analyzing
words
3. structural analysis: breaking word apart, it involves the recognition of prefixes,
suffixes, root words, syllables, and accents in analyzing words. Structural
components within familiar words would consider structural clues in identifying
unknown words.
4. use of dictionary: learning how to locate entry words. This involves knowledge
of alphabetical order and of the use of guidewords, and the ability to recognize
root words.
5. acquisition of sight vocabulary: the ability of recognizing words without having
to examine them carefully.
+ Word meaning skills:
1. use of contextual clues
2. structural analysis
3. use of dictionary
4. recognition of multiple meanings
5. recognition of figurative language: the ability of distinguishing between the literal
and the figurative meanings of words
+ Comprehension skills:
1. recognition of literal meaning

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2. recognition of inferred meaning
3. critical evaluation of material
4. assimilation of material
+ Study skills:
1. location of information: How to use sources of information from the table of
content, the index, the encyclopedia
2. selection of information: Making decisions about what ideas and facts are

important. It consists of recognizing subjects, recognizing topics, recognizing
main ideas, key sentences, noting important details.
3. organization and retention of information: seeing relationships among ideas and
thinking about them in an organized way furthers understanding and facilities
recall. They include preparing outlines, preparing summaries, taking notes.
4. use of graphic and typographical aids: Illustrations to make abstract ideas clearer
and concrete such as: maps, diagrams, charts, and pictures.
5. ability to preview: taking a quick look at a reading before trying to understand the
whole thing.
6. flexibility: when to read slowly and carefully and when to read quickly, and how
to vary their reading styles according to their purposes and the nature of the
material. It deals with scanning for specific information, skimming for general
ideas.
+ Appreciation skills:
1. recognition of the language literature
2. recognition of the form of literature

According to Nuttall (1982: 62-123), he provides a list of reading skills which consists of
macro- skills of reading comprehension with Word attack skills and Text attack skills.
 Word attack skills are composed of processing morphological information,
distinguishing structural clues, inferencing (or guessing the meanings of unfamiliar
words) from context, active, receptive and throw-away vocabulary, learning to ignore
difficult words and using dictionary
 Text attack skills contain two subgroups:

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+ Significance and cohesion: understanding sentence syntax, recognizing and
interpreting cohesive devices and interpreting discourse markers
+ Discourse: recognizing functional value, tracing and interpreting rhetorical
organization, recognizing the presuppositions underlying the text, recognizing

implications and making inferences, prediction and integration and application.
In addition, Broughton and others (1978: 211) suggest another list of reading skills which
can be divided into two groups:
+ Group 1: Lower order mechanical skills:
- Recognition of letter shapes
- Recognition of linguistic elements (phoneme / grapheme, word,
phrase, clause pattern, sentence, etc.)
- Recognition of sound / letter spelling pattern correspondence (ability
to “bark at print”)
- Slow reading speed
+ Group 2: Higher order comprehension skills:
- Understanding plain sense (lexical, grammatical, rhetorical)
- Understanding significance (logical, author attitude / purpose, cultural
relevance / setting, reader reaction)
- Evaluation (content, form)
- Flexible reading speed
In this list, higher-level comprehension skills do not deal with discourse, which is
understood as the way the meanings in a text are organized to convey the message.
Considering and comparing the above suggested lists of reading skills, it can be seen that the
number of skills come from different authors, but they share some common features and can
be grouped into the main types such as recognition skills, decoding skills and comprehension
skills. When reading a text, the reader must use these skills. He can not use them separately,
these skills are interrelated and recursive. The reader is required to use his linguistic
knowledge, background knowledge, and bottom-up and top-down processing.
Among the above lists, it is better for this study to follow Karlin, R and Karlin, A.R.
(1988)’s list because the list was categorized rather clearly in terms of items: word

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recognition skills, word meaning skills, comprehension skills, study skills and appreciation
skills so it is easier to look at for analysis.

It can be seen that there are various sub-skills of reading comprehension by different authors.
However, as mentioned in rationale for the study, such sub-skills of reading comprehension
as reading for specific information, finding the main ideas, guessing vocabulary from the
context, and making inferences are considered basic reading skills to understand the author’s
thought. Therefore, the study would focus on the four reading sub-skills.
1.6.1. Reading for specific information
Reading for specific information is the way we read the passage and only pay attention to the
relevant parts or information needed, we don’t need to take care of all printed words on the
page. We are suggested to skip unnecessary information or irrelevant parts in the passage.
With respect to reading for specific information, readers are advised to run their eyes very
quickly and only stop reading when they found the information wanted. Hence, the reading
sub-skill is close to scanning. In other words, scanning is reading strategies for locating
specific information. Brown (1994: 293) refers to reading for specific information is the way
of “quickly searching for some particular pieces of information in a text”. Grellet (1981: 19)
also claims that when locating specific information, we do not even follow the linearity of
the passage to do so, the way we should do is to “let our eyes wander over the text until we
find what we are looking for”. Clearly, the skill has strong relationship with scanning. If a
reader doesn’t recognize this relationship, he/she will take a lot of time to deal with the task
on locating specific information.
It is also realized that reading for specific information is required readers to understand the
text at their literal comprehension level, which is the lowest reading comprehension level.
Since readers only find a piece of information already in the text and then give answers.
Therefore, the tasks focused on the skill are considered to be easier than others by students.
1.6.2. Finding the main ideas
Finding the main ideas requires readers to gain their reading comprehension at both literal
and inferential level. If the main information is directly stated in the paragraph or in the

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passage, readers only understand the text at their literal reading comprehension level, if not,
they have to infer the main ideas and readers must gain their reading comprehension at

inferential level.
Finding the main ideas is the ability to find the most important thing an author is trying to
say. It is perhaps the most important of all reading comprehension skills. Harris (1962: 240-
241) expresses “without it, the reader gets lost in a mass of detail”. As a result, he/she will
become confused about the principal topic which is discussed. Therefore, grasping main
points from the text is crucial for mastering content information.
Finding the main ideas in a passage is more complicated than that in a paragraph because
readers have to find the main ideas of different paragraphs and then to synthesize them into
an organic whole. The main idea of a paragraph or a passage refers to the central points or
thought being expressed in the paragraph or in the passage. In order to grasp the main idea, a
reader should ask himself/herself the question “what is this paragraph or this passage
about?” If he/she answers this question perfectly, he/she will succeed in recognizing the
main idea.
In a paragraph, the main idea usually lies in the first or in the last sentence, and the main idea
of the text is usually in the introductory or in the concluding paragraph. On occasion, the
main ideas of paragraphs are not states explicitly but have to be inferred. In this case, readers
should decide what the topic is and determine the main ideas from the details. Burns, Roe &
Ross (1988: 215) recommend that the most important thing in finding the main ideas is
recognizing the topic sentence. They suggest a list as followings:
1. A topic sentence often states the main ideas of the paragraph
2. The topic sentence is often, though not always, the first sentence in the
paragraph; sometimes it appears at the end or in the middle.
3. Not all paragraphs have topic sentences
4. The main idea is supported by all the details in a well-written paragraph
5. When the main idea is not directly stated, readers can determine it by
discovering the topic to which all of the stated details are related.

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Finding the main ideas is related closely to skimming because “skimming gives readers the
advantage of being able to predict the purpose of the passage, the main topic or message, and

possibly some of the developing or supporting ideas. This gives them “head start” as they
embark on more focused reading” (Brown 1994: 293). It means that, in skimming, readers
have to find the general and overall ideas of the whole text in order to catch the gist of it.
In short, when dealing with finding the main ideas, it is suggested to recognize the topic(s)
first, and then distinguish the important ideas from supporting details. The term “topic”
regards to the subject while the term “main idea” is the “key concept” being expressed or is
the most important information in a piece of discourse. Supporting details are less important
information which tells how, what, when, where, why, how much or how many,… to
support more information to the main idea.
1.6.3. Guessing vocabulary from the context
It cannot be denied that vocabulary plays an essential role in reading. Wilkin (1972: 110)
states its role in reading comprehension that “without grammar, very little can be conveyed,
without vocabulary nothing conveyed”. Widdowson (1978: 3) also shares the same view, he
claims that “the knowledge of English words is one of the basic factors for the mastery of the
language”. Vocabulary is, in fact, an essential component in reading comprehension. Studies
by different investigators show that knowledge of word meaning is the most important single
factor that accounts for variability in reading comprehension. Hence, the more number of
vocabulary a reader knows, the better he/she can gain reading comprehension. However, it
is the fact that no readers can know all English words while dealing with reading materials.
They can cope with unknown words but the matter is that they know a small number of
words or a large number of words. In the case they deal with unfamiliar words, they are
suggested to make a guess at the meaning of the words they do not know rather than look
them up in a dictionary. When readers guess meaning of an unknown word, they must gain
their reading comprehension at inferential level.
In order to guess meaning of an unknown word, we should put it in its context. The context
is the setting- the sentence and paragraph- in which a word appears. The meaning of a word
in context is its meaning in the particular sentence and paragraph in which it is used. A

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single English word can gave many different meanings, its precise meaning always depends

on the context it is used.
Contextual clues are used to make a good guess at the word’s meaning. Learning how to use
context clues to figure out the meaning of unknown words is an essential reading strategy
and vocabulary-builder. Robert Karlin and Andrea R. Karlin (1988: 246) mention
“contextual clues can be an effective method of helping pupils to learn how to determine
word meaning”.
Types of context clues:
In order to guess or infer meaning of an unknown word from context, readers must have
clues. Nation (1983) suggests some clues as follows
+ Structural clues: Structural clues are used to determine the type of grammatical category
of the new word. They consist of morphology, synonyms and antonyms, hyponyms,
restatement, definitions, reference words, punctuation, and alternatives.
+ Inference clues: Inference clues require a higher level of analytical skill and practice than
the previous type. For these types of clues the same method of practice can be used-
recognizing elements and obtaining meaning from the elements. They comprise summary
clue, comparison and contrast, cause and result, and cohesion.
1.6.4. Making inferences
An inference is making meaning out of an idea suggested in a text that is not stated directly
by the writer. It is sometimes called “reading between the lines”. Making inference in
reading is a crucial skill that must be mastered for a reader to have real comprehension.
Making inferences helps readers recognize the author’s purpose to see whether the author
offers any personal messages without actually stating them. When inferring, on one side,
readers use clues from the text to figure out something that the author doesn’t tell them,
another side, they draw upon prior knowledge to make judgments about upcoming events in
the passage. From that they can draw a logical conclusion about what might happen next.
Hence, reading for inference involves reading the text and recalling prior experience. Once

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readers make inferences from the text, it means they gain their reading comprehension at
inferential level.

* Types of Inference
There are different types of inference one can draw from written discourse. They are
explained below in terms of bridging inference, contextual inference and structural inference.
- Bridging Inference: Bridging Inference is drawn to establish coherence between a
present piece of information and a preceding piece of information. Here, we have to
infer the relationship or link between these two pieces of information.
- Contextual Inference: Contextual Inference is drawn to infer the implied idea or
suggestion in a text. It concerns expectations about what events will take place in the
world described by the text, not about what events will actually be stated explicitly in
the text. In order to infer the implied idea, the reader has to use several types of
information in the text.
- Structural inference: It refers to the reader using his implicit knowledge of text
structures to facilitate his comprehension of texts. Text structure refers to how the
ideas in the text are organized by the writer.
Grellet (1981: 14) also mentioned that “Inferring means making use of syntactic, logical and
cultural clues to discover the meaning of unknown elements”. Nuttall (1996: 73-75) shared
that “this kind of activity require us to make use of schemata”.
To sum up, in this chapter, the relevant literature review to the purpose of the thesis is
presented. It starts with definitions of reading and reading comprehension, reading process,
context and the role of context, schema theory, reading comprehension levels, and reading
comprehension skills.