SOME STRATEGIES FOR DEALING WITH UNFAMILIAR WORDS IN READING COMPREHENSION FOR STUDENTS OF ENGLISH FACULTY, HANOI OPEN UNIVERSITY

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Nguyen Thi Thu Thuy - K13U

HANOI OPEN UNIVERSITY FACULTY OF ENGLISH AND
MODERN LANGUAGES

GRADUATION PAPER
B.A Degree in English

SOME STRATEGIES FOR DEALING WITH UNFAMILIAR
WORDS IN READING COMPREHENSION FOR STUDENTS
OF ENGLISH FACULTY, HANOI OPEN UNIVERSITY

Supervisor ề.

Le Phuong Thao, M.A

Student :

Nguyen Thi Thu Thuy

Date of birth: 29/09/1988
Course :

2006 - 2010

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Hanoi, May 2010

DECLARATION

Title: SOME STRATEGIES FOR DEALING WITH UNFAMILIAR WORDS IN
READING COMPREHENSION FOR STUDENTS OF ENGLISH FACULTY,
HANOI OPEN UNIVERSITY
(Graduation Paper submitted in Partial Fulfillment for B.A Degree in
English)

I certify that no part of the above report has been copied and reproduced by
me from any other person’s work without acknowledgement and that the report is
originally written by me under strict guidance of my supervisor.

Date submitted: May 15th, 2010

Student:
Nguyễn Thị Thu Thủy

Supervisor:
Lê Phương Thảo

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I am so glad to have a good opportunity of doing this graduation paper. It

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helps me much in collecting and classifying my knowledge which I have studied. To
finish paper, I have worked under extremely high responsibility. I received many
supports from teachers and friends. I cannot accomplish this task without tìieừ help.
First of all, I would like to express my appreciation to all the teachers of
English faculty, Hanoi open University for teaching me to be a well-educated student.
I have learnt so many tilings from what they taught me. They have made favourable
conditions for me to study at school during my precious four years here.
Secondly, I would like to give special thanks to Ms. Le Phuong Thao, my
supervisor, for both her positive response to my ideas for this paper and her advice
that helped me to complete it. I would not complete my graduation paper without her
enthusiastic instructions and correction.
Besides, I also would like to thank my friends and all the students who helped
me implement my study.
Finally yet important, I am very thankful to my family and my boyfriend for
their spữitual and financial supports to help me finish my course in Hanoi Open
University.

Hanoi, May 2009
Nguyễn Thị Thu Thủy

CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTION lẵl
Rationale:
Reading is an important tool for people of many societies allowing them to
access information or knowledge. Everyone needs reading skills for various purposes
as survival, broadened knowledge and pleasure. Reading is a basic skill not only

every school requires but every job expects. It is the fact that skills of reading and

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analyzing documents or a variety of data sources are major factors which affect a
person’s work results and his salary as well. Therefore, improving reading skill is
very important for undergraduate students of English in general and English faculty at
Hanoi open University in particular.
Reading is not just pronouncing words but requires understanding. However,
the first tiling students learning English as a foreign language meet when they are
reading is the vocabulary. Many students probably consider that tìieừ mam problem in
reading is not having a big enough vocabulary. Most students who meet an unfamiliar
word they cannot interpret are first likely to ask what it means. If they do not find out
the word’s meaning, they cannot go on reading and comprehending the text. College
material contains unfamiliar words and specialized or technical vocabulary that
students must learn. Also, college textbooks in general are written at a higher level
than other materials, so some effective strategies for dealing with unfamiliar words in
reading comprehension are necessary.
In studying process, the author of this paper and other students of English
faculty at Hanoi open University have met many difficulties made by unfamiliar
words in reading comprehension. Therefore, the author would like to present some
reading compehension and unfamiliar word knowledge and propose some effective
sừategies for dealing with unfamiliar words in reading comprehension for students of
English faculty at Hanoi open University.

lế2 Aims of the study:

It is obvious that reading plays an important role in our life. No worker can
work well without reading documents and no student can study without reading
books. Yet, we always have trouble with unfamiliar words in reading. The objective
of the study is to bring out some strategies which are helpful in dealing with
unfamiliar words in reading comprehension for students of English faculty, Hanoi
open University. In this study, the author would like to focus on finding what
difficulties students usually meet when encountering unfamiliar words in reading and
from that point, the author would like to bring out some effective strategies to help
students learning English as a foreign language in general and the students of English
faculty at HOU in particular to overcome tìieừ difficulties. To help students deal with
unfamiliar words in reading comprehension, this study focused on the following main

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points:
•

Overview of basic knowledge on reading comprehension and

unfamiliar words in reading
•

Difficulties made by unfamiliar words in reading comprehension for

students
•

A survey to get what exactly students find hard in encountering

unfamiliar words in reading comprehension and their habit of dealing with
this
•

Proposed effective strategies of dealing with unfamiliar words in

reading comprehension based on the result drawn from the survey.
Hopefully, this research will be a good source for students in general,
especially the students of English faculty at HOU in particular.

1Ệ3 Scope of the study:
English reading comprehension is a wide field for research. In the scope of this
study, due to the limited time and knowledge, the author mainly focuses on
difficulties made by unfamiliar words in reading comprehension and some effective
strategies for dealing with it. The research aimed at English learners, especially
students at Faculty of English, Hanoi Open University.

1Ệ4 Method of the study:
In order to accomplish this thesis systematically and adequately, the author has
acquired all the literature resources from many sources of data such as the internet,
newspapers and linguistic books in the Library of Faculty of English and Modem
Languages, HOU and the Vietnam National Library. The author implemented a
survey with subjects who are students of English faculty, Hanoi Open University.
Personal observation consulted and discussed by the supervisor in the process of

researching also contributed much to the completion of this thesis.

1Ệ5 Design of the study:
The study is divided into five chapters:

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• Chapter I: Introduction
• Chapter II: Literature Review
• Chapter III: The study
• Chapter IV: The finding and discussion
• Chapter V: Conclusion

CHAPTER II: LITERATURE REVIEW
2ềl Reading Comprehension:
2.1.1 Definition of Reading:
Joe Cortina and Janet Elder (2000) defined reading as a form of thinking in
Opening Doors - Understanding college reading: “It is your brain that does the
reading, not your eyes. Your eyes merely transmit images to the brain for it to
interpret” (12,75). To understand this, we consider a blind person reading Braille, a
system of printing for the blind, in this case, the finger - tips transmit input to the
brain. Thus, Joe and Janet highly preciate the importance of brain or thinking in
reading. It also means that meaning resides in the reader’s mind, not in symbols
printed on a page. It is the readers who construct meaning by associating theữ
knowledge and experience with what is on the printed page. Different readers,

therefore, with their own knowledge and experience have different understanding
about the written text.
In Deanne’s view (2000), reading term is defined as follows: “Reading is a
complex cognitive process of decoding symbols for the intention of deriving meaning
(reading comprehension) and/or constructing meaning” (6,65). According to
Deanne, reading is a process of getting a message from a written text. The writer
encodes his thought or ideas as language and the reader decodes the language to
understand author’s message. This can be understood that reading refers to receiving
the writer’s knowledge and thought. It is an activity that connects the reader and the
written material or the writer. When reading, obviously, readers interact with the
writer in some ways and this will be influent on the reading effectiveness of readers.
Another noticeable definition on reading given by John, L. (2002) is that:

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“Reading is the motivated and fluent coordination of word recognition and
comprehension” (14,89). In his study, he shows that “Reading is a multifaceted
process involving word recognition, comprehension, fluency and motivation”.
Reading is making meaning from print. It requires: identifying the words in print
(word recognition), constructing an understanding from it (comprehension),
coordinating identifying words and making meaning so that reading is automatic and
accurate (fluency). Reading in its fullest sense involves weaving together word
recognition and comprehension in a fluent manner. These three processes are
complex, and each is important. Leipzig, also, gives a considerable idea on reading:
if reading is not pleasurable or fulfilling, readers will not choose to read, and they

will not get the practice they need to become fluent or efficient readers. Therefore,
reading also means developing and maintaining the motivation to read.
In general, reading, like other terms, is defined in many different ways
depend on each person’ view and his/her study purpose. Hence, it is not easy to give
a completely exact definition on this term. However, a definition can be summarized
basing on above definitions is that: Reading is a complex process in which written or
printed material is decoded by readers in order to get writer’s message.
2.1.2 Definition of Reading Comprehension:
The term “comprehension” is offered in Webster’s College Dictionary (2008)
is “the capcity of the mind to perceive and understand” or “power to grasp ideas ”
from the written text. In other words, reading comprehension is a highly interactive
process that takes place between a reader and a text. Individual readers will bring
variable levels of skills and experiences to these interactions. These include language
skills, cognitive resources and world knowledge. Any act of reading occurs within a
particular sociocultural and emotional context. This consists of elements such as the
readers’ home culture, theữ previous experiences of reading and being read to, their
expectations that reading should carry meaning, their motivation, their view of
themselves as a reader, the purpose for reading the text, the cultural value placed on
reading and the reading environments the reader experiences.
According to Hulstijn (1993), the word comprehension has its roots in Latin:
comprehendere means to seize. In the Latin derived language of
French, from which many English words come, the verb comprendre means to

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understand. Thus, reading comprehension denotes the ability to read words and grasp
(seize) the meaning of these individual words as well as to understand the meaning of
the groups of these words.While many students can read aloud, calling out the
individual words with the coưect pronunciations, some of them do not comprehend
what they read. That is, they can say all the words, but they do not understand what
the combined words all mean. On the other hand, those who can read aloud or
silently and understand what they have read, have reading comprehension. Reading
comprehension, therefore, can be defined as “the level of understanding of a
writing”.
Reading comprehension can be known as the result of effective reading as
well as the ability to understand and interact with the written materials in a
meaningful way. For students, comprehension refers to understanding college
textbook by reading for ideas. Reading comprehension is the crucial link to effective
reading, a sừong factor in our educational and professional lives. Reading
comprehension can be known as the heart and goal of reading, since the purpose of
all reading is to gather meaning from the printed page.
2ễlễ3 The importance of Reading Comprehension:
One of the mam benefits of reading is that it helps to build our vocabulary.
When reading books, magazines, websites, etc. we sometimes encounter new words.
Even if we do not completely understand the word, we will be able to figure it out
through association or the use of a dictionary. This not only allows our vocabulary to
grow but deepens our level of understanding. We see and remember new words and
are given examples of how they are used, this means that vocabulary is expanded
through reading process. Reading keeps our brain working and keeps us up to date
with language and modem vocabulary and slang. It is well - known fact that too
many people today don’t read regularly and they also suffer difficulties from their
limited vocabulary in communication. Each person’ vocabulary is the foundation of
his ability to think and his ability to share his thought with other people. The more
we read the more effectively we use language in daily life.
Another great benefit of reading is that it provides us a wonderful time to

relax and de-stress for both children and adults. Reading can transport people to
different countries and cultures, or it can take us on a great adventure. Reading

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should be viewed as a pleasurable activity - as a source of entertaining tales and
useful and interesting factual information. If we need a few moments to relax after a
hard day, reading is a wonderful way to do so. Through books, besides, children can
also learn about people and places from other parts of the world, improve their
understanding of and concern for all of humanity. Reading can provide children with
endless hours of fun and entertainment. Stories can free up imaginations and open up
exciting new words of fantasty or reality. They allow children to dream and may give
them a good start on the road to viewing reading as a lifelong source of pleasure.
It is also found that another reading benefit that shows the importance of
reading is that reading can actually help to enhance our brain power. Not only is
reading a required skill to complete school and then university it is also a needed
skill in adult hood. The ability to read and learn new things through out our life
keeps our brain young and health. As we read, we stimulate the brain, and there are
some studies that even show that people who read on a regular basis are less likely to
end up dealing with problems like Alzheimer’s Disease. It is also observed that
children and teengagers who love reading have comparatively higher IQs. The ability
to learn about new subjects and find helpful information on anything from health
problems to more academic research into science or the arts depends on the ability to
read. Recent researches has shown that good readers stand out from the rest because
of theữ improved cognitive abilities. They can think creatively. It improves theữ

grasping power. It makes them analyse and solve problems better. Reading helps a
person be successful in life.
Reading on a regular basis can also have the added benefit of improving our
spelling as well. The more we read, the more we see the proper spelling and it will
help us to make sure that we are spelling tilings correctly as well, which is definitely
very important. People who start reading from an early age are observed to have
good language skills, and they grasp the variances in phonics much better.
Especially, for children, reading out loud exposes them to proper grammar and
phrasing. It enhances the development of tìieừ spoken language skills, their ability to
express themselves verbally, clearly and concisely.
After all, there are many great benefits of reading and they all show the
importance of reading today. There are so many ways in which reading continues to

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be both a vital skill for students to master, and an important source of knowledge and
pleasure. Reading is like providing the mind with nourishment. Knowledge is the
food for the mind and soul. Apart from giving us the basic information about the
world around us, it also encourages us to think. Therefore, the key to improving
weak reading comprehension is to promote our reading habbit and skills through
understanding main benefits of reading completely.
2ễlễ4 Types of reading and Reading rates:
Scanning type of reading: This type is used to look for some printed materials
quickly or find a particular piece of information such as a name, date, or phone
number.Take an example, we read a telephone book, we know exactly what we are

searching for (key words and names). We “see” every item on the page, but we don’t
necessarily read the pages. We ignore anything we are not looking for. Thus, when
we discover the key words being searched for, we will be unable to recall the exact
content of the page. Approximate rate of scanning type of reading is 1,500 wpm
(words per minute) or more.
Skimming type of reading: Skimming is a reading skill used to get an
overview of the highlights of the material. We read the material quickly to gain a
general impression and it is not necessary to search for a specific item and key
words. Skimming method is useful to look at chapter/section headings, summaries
and opening paragraphs. The two purposes of skimming are: checking relevance of
text and settting the scene for the more concentrated effort that is to follow, if the text
is useful. A person who uses skimming type of reading has the reading speed at
between 800 to 1,000 wpm.
Light type of reading: Reading for leisure tends to be light reading. This
refers to reading at a pace which feels comfortable, reading with understanding, and
skimming the boring, iưelevant passages. An average light reading speed is 100 200 words per minute. This form of reading does not generally require detailed
concentration.
Word by word type of reading: This type of reading is time consuming and
demands a high level of concentration. Some material is not readily understood and
so it requừes a slow, careful and analytical reading. People use this type of reading

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for unfamiliar words and concepts, scientific formulate. It can take up to an hour just
to read a few lines of text.

Reading to study type of reading: The aim of the method of reading for study
is to understand the material some depth. The method involves five simple steps:
Survey, Question, Read, Recall and Review. The first, readers skim through to gain
an overview and not key points. Then, they devise questions we hope the text will
answer and read slowly and carefully. The forth step is recalling from memory,
writing down the main points made by the chapter. Final one is reviewing readers’
questions, comparing these to their recall and establishing how well the text has
answered the questions, and filling in any gaps by further reading and note-taking.
Obviously, people read for many different purposes. There are different styles
of reading for different situations. The technique reader chooses will depend on the
purpose for reading. For example, he might be reading for enjoyment, information, or
to complete a task. If he is exploring or reviewing, he might skim a document. If he
is searching for information, he might scan for a particular word. To get detailed
information, he might use a technique such as SQ4R. Readers, moreover, need to
adjust their reading speed and technique depending on their purposes. Our reading
speed should fit

OUT

purposes for reading. We read for many different purposes, and

our reasons for reading any particular material affects our reading speed. For
example, we approach to reading a newspaper article or a letter from a friend will be
different from our approach to reading and studying a college textbook. Reading
rates and their uses are shown in this following table (12, 79):

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Table 2.1: Flexible reading
Reading rates

Uses
Approximate rate (wpm)

Rapid reading

300 - 500

For relatively easy material,
when readers want only
important facts or ideas or
for leisure reading.

Average reading

200 - 300

For

textbooks,

complex

magazines and journals and
literature.

Studying reading

50-200

For

new

vocabulary,

complex concepts, technical
material,
details

and
(such

retaining
as

legal

documents, material to be
memorized and material of
great

interest

or

importance).

2.1. 5 Reading comprehension strategies:
The term “strategy” refers to “a particular plan for achievement of a goal”
(18, 257). A lot of reading strategies are adopted by the speed reader to accomplish
reader’s goal of fast reading. Reading is not only just pronouncing words but
requires understanding. Most experienced readers use a variety of strategies to
understand text. Five main strategies suggested to ensure good
reading comprehension are: prediction, questioning, clarifying, imagining and
summarisation.

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Prediction: Predicting means anticipating or making educated guesses about
what is coming next as reader reads. Predicting is a natural part of reading and the
first step to successful comprehension, but we may not always do it when we are
reading college textbooks. It could be believed that the ability to predict what a text
entails is the first step to successful comprehension. A reader obtains the first clues to
what a text is about via its title. Together with the opening sentences this can help the
reader decide if the text is appropriate to their purpose (in the case of non-fiction) or
to activate a story schema (in the case of fiction). The good reader then actively looks
for cues to enrich their mental model of the text as reading proceeds. In turn, the
developing representation of the text can be used to set up expectancies at the word,
sentence and text levels. This will facilitate reading fluency and deepen
understanding.

Questioning and clarifying: An actively engaged reader can use selfquestioning to monitor theừ reading comprehension and to help clarify points that
they fail to understand. Closely related to this is the use of the look back strategy to
find information that is needed to resolve ambiguities. A successful comprehender
knows how to generate pertinent questions, and can fall back on theữ mental model
of the text to know where to locate relevant information.
Imagining: Imagining refers to the use of mental imagery to enhance text
comprehension by enriching the mental model of a text. Many successful
comprehenders translate the story they are reading into a series of images, almost like
a film that can be replayed during story recall. Children who do not do this
spontaneously can be taught to use the strategy to incorporate the details of what they
read around a central theme.
Summarisation: The process of summarisation is perhaps most closely allied
to the development of the situation model. Summarisation involves the extraction of
the gist and main themes of what is read (while putting aside the irrelevant details),
and integrating the details into a coherent whole. Additional processes may include
the evaluation of style and mood and making generalisations. Summarisation
depends on basic language skills, inferential abilities and knowledge and engagement
with texts.

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2ễlễ6 Effective reading and proficient readers:
Effective reading is active and interactive process. Effective reading requires
that readers interact with the material they are reading. Reading actively also means
being aware of how the material is organized. Finally, active reading means that

readers monitor tìieừ comprehension as they read and that they take steps to correct
the situation when they are not comprehending.
Most of people think of reading as a simple, passive process. But reading is
actually a very complex process that requires a great deal of active participation on
the part of the reader. Here are some ideas which experts in the field have said about
the reading process:
“What do we read? The message is not something given in advance - or given
at all - but something created by interaction between writers and readers as
participants in a particular communicative situation”. (Roy Haưis in Rethinking
Writing, 2000)
“Reading is asking questions of printed text. And reading with
comprehension becomes a matter of getting your questions answered”. (Frank Smith
in Reading without nonsense, 1997)
“Reading is a psycholinguistic guessing game. It involves an interaction
between thought and language. Efficient reading does not result from precise
perception an identification of all elements, but from skill in selecting the fewest,
most productive cues necessary to produce guesses which are right the first time.
The ability to anticipate that which has not been seen, of course, is vital in reading,
just as the ability to anticipate what has not yet been heard is vital in listening”.
(Kenneth Goodman in Journal of the Reading Specialist, 1967)
“Literacy practices are almost always fully integrated with, interwoven into,
constituted as part of, the very texture of wider practices that involve talk,
interaction, values, and beliefs”. (James Gee in Social Linguistics and Literacies,
1996)
According to above ideas, reading is a process requừes many complex skills
and a proficient reader is a reader who knows how to use them logically. For
example, proficient readers recognize the purpose for reading, approach the reading

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with that purpose in mind, use strategies that have proven successful to them in the
past when reading similar texts for similar purposes, monitor their comprehension of
the text in light of the purpose for reading, and if needed adjust theữ strategy use.
Proficient readers know when unknown words will interfere with achieving theừ
purpose for reading, and when they won't. When unknown words arise and theừ
meaning is needed for comprehension, proficient readers have a number of word
attack strategies available to them that will allow them to point out the meaning of
the words to the extent that they are needed to achieve the purpose for reading.
Reading is also a complex process in that proficient readers give to the text as much
as they take. They make meaning from the text by using theữ own prior knowledge
and experiences. Proficient readers are constantly making predictions while reading.
They are continuously anticipating what will come next. Their prior knowledge and
experiences with texts as well as with the world around them allow them to do this. It
is this continuous interaction with the text that allows readers to make sense of what
they are reading.
Hussain (2005, p. 110) writes that a proficient reader who comprehends
English language has the following capabilities:
• He can read at normal speed.
• He is able to understand the lexical and the structural meanings of the
words, phrases and sentences.
• He can take in complete phrases or groups of words at once and when
reading aloud, use appropriate sounds, juncture, stress and intonation
pattern.
• He can guess the meaning of unfamiliar words while reading a text.
• If he is unable to guess the meaning of an unfamiliar word, he can find out

it in a dictionary.
• He can skip unnecessary information while skimming.

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• He is able to read silently without moving his lỉpsỄ
• He is able to differentiate between opinion and facts.
• He can locate the topic sentence in a paragraph.
• He can make a summary of important points.
• He can distinguish between various moods of ứie writer.
• He can recognize the meanings of various graphic signals such as punctuation
marks, etcỄ
This is shown clearly through the following figure:

Reading Activities Performed by skilled Readers
l>Eint

Problem
High Level Piocesses: Oft#nR«Ịulifts

Conscious Awaienassand

strategic

Consumes C o - g n U I • fteadiiW}

Capacity
v

\Actl

Rítprmliii
m]
Teisl
Meaning
And Using
1
ext
Thinking

IA

Irtltftfrb
kK
\jPrwes*s j

Figure 2.1: Reading activities performed by skilled readers
Proficient reading depends
and

1

on the ability to recognize words quickly
IdeftUfvi
ii(j

Letters

16


effortlessly. A proficient reader is a person who “does not have to interrupt his reading
and open the dictionary all” (Deanne Milan).

2ẵ2 Unfamiliar words:
2ễ2ễl Definition of word:
In Webster’s College Dictionary, a word is known as:
“a unit of language, consisting of one or more spoken sounds or their written
representation, that functions as a principal carrier of meaning, is typically seen as the
smallest such unit capable of independent use, is separated from other such units by
spaces in writing and is often distinguished phonologically, as by accent or pause”.
(18, 412)
A word is the smallest free form or an item that may be uttered in isolation
with semantic or pragmatic content in a language, in contrast to a morpheme, which is
the smallest unit of meaning. A word may consist of only one morpheme (e.g. car),
but a single morpheme may not able to exist as a free form (e.g. the English plural
morpheme -s). Typically, a word will consist of a root or stem, and zero or more
affixes. Words can be combined to create other units of language, such as phrases,
clauses, and sentences. A word consisting of two or more stems joined together form a
compound. A word combined with an already existing word or part of a word form a
portmanteau. (Internet source No.)
Another remarkable definition on word which Leonard Bloomfield introduced
the concept of “Minimal Free Forms” in 1962 is that “Words are thought of as the
smallest meaningful unit of speech that can stand by themselves. This involes
phonemes - units of sound and lexemes - units of meaning”. However, he also
approves that some written words are not minimal free forms, as they make no sense

by themselves (e.g. the and of).
A word in English is a basic central unit in the language. It may consist of one
or more morphemes as a morpheme is the smallest unit that has meaning, either lexical
or grammatical.
Lexical words are called Open class items which convey content words
include Nouns, Adjectives, Adverbs and Verbs. The number of this class is unlimited


because its members can go together to create a new word with new meaning (e.g. new
is an adjective combines with bom - a verb to create a new adjective new - bom) . By
adding affixes to a member, a new member can be formed. For instance, act (Verb) -*
active (Adjective) -► actively (Adverb) -* actor (Noun) -► action (Noun).
In contrast, grammatical words is known as Closed system items which consist
of function words such as Articles, Demonstratives, Pronouns, Prepositions and
Conjunctions. This type of word has some features different from Open class items.
The number of grammatical words is limited because its members can not go together,
in the other hand, the members of this class exclude each other. For example, a car is
accepted but a my car is not available. As the result, it can never create new members.
Basic knowledge of word is shown clearly in the following diagram:

Morphemes

Words

Parts of speech

Open class

Closed - system

Noun, Verb, Adjective,
Adverb

Pronoun, Article,
Preposition, Conjunction,
Demonstrative,
Interjection

Diagram 2.1 : Word structure.
2.2.2 Definition of unfamiliar words:
Reading in its fullest sense involves weaving together word recognition and
comprehension in a fluent manner. However, the fact shows that word


comprehension is not always easy. The first thing students meet when they are
reading is the vocabulary. Many students probably consider that their main problem
in reading is not having a big enough vocabulary. Most students who meet an
unfamiliar word cannot interpret are first likely to ask what it means. If they do not
find out the word’s meaning, they can not go on reading and comprehending the
text. So, what is an unfamiliar word in reading?
A word which is an “unaccustomed” or “unusual” word to readers is called
an unfamiliar word (18, 190). It is unlikely that a student will know every word in a
text and even if he thinks he has seen every word before, it is unlikely that he will
has seen a particular word in its present context. It is therefore necessary to work out
the meaning of unfamiliar words in context and, perphaps, familiar words in new
contexts.
Reading in college refers to reading academic materials with many difficult
words. Students cannot read college textbooks, however, without also facing with
unfamiliar words. An unfamiliar word can be a new word or a familiar word in new
contexts. For example:

“Nutrient levels have risen sharply in many parts of the bay, causing algal
blooms and oxygen depletion. Levels of heavy metals and toxic organic chemicals
have increased in the water and in the bottom sediment, and some of this toxic
contaminants have been biologically amplified in food webs. ”
In above example, “algal blooms”, abundant seaweed-type plant, is
considered a new word for many students because it is a technical term. Students
hardly meet it in other contexts so they cannot figure out its meaning. The next word
“amplified” is probably a familiar word means “to enlarge by addition or
discussion”. But in this context, its meaning is “increased, made greater”. It
therefore is also considered an unfamiliar word which students cannot identify the
exact meaning of word.
For these reasons, unfamiliar words can cause frequent interruptions in
students’ reading concentration. If there are too many unfamiliar words in the text, this
can be a substantial stumbling block for further progress in reading any text.
Furthermore, students who do not have a means of dealing with these difficult words,
their sustained reading will be much more disrupted, less words will be encountered.


2.2.3 Difficulties made by unfamiliar words in reading comprehension:
In college or university, studying requữes certain reading comprehension skills
so that college students may be able to ready fluently textbooks, specialist documents
or other academic papers. Even reading comprehension is also one of the most
important skills required in tests and examinations. Yet, the fact that reading
comprehension is not easy and comfortable for students due to unfamiliar words in the
page.
Whenever students encounter the unfamiliar words, their reading is certainly
interrupted. Most of them feel confused and worried because of these words.
Generally, their reading habit is reading word-by-word. They can comprehend the
sentence only when every word of the context is familiar with them. Understanding
individual words is vital for them to understand the whole sentence. Students who is

not available to understand such sentences definitely struggle with the whole text’s
meaning.
Moreover, the first reaction of encountering an unfamiliar word in reading
comprehension is that students immediately stop to ask other people (friends, teachers
or nearby people) for helping or look it up in the dictionary. This, of course, makes
their reading speed slow. This means students do not save their time when reading or
not gain their reading goal. Slow reading speed also affect on finishing students’ scores
at school.
Another difficulty made by unfamiliar words is lack of interest to reading
comprehension. Reading is not only just pronouncing words but requừes understanding
so understanding what is being read is very important for students in studying or
researching. Reading process interrupted by unfamiliar words means that reading is not
pleasurable or fulfilling. Students will not choose to read, and they will not get the
practice they need to become fluent or efficient readers. Therefore, developing and
maintaining the motivation to read is also affected by unfamiliar words in reading
comprehension.


2ẵ3 Some strategies for dealing with unfamiliar words in reading
comprehension:
2.3.1 Ignoring the unfamiliar words:
When students first meet unfamiliar words in reading, they should ignore them
by using skimming and scanning skills if the unfamiliar words don’t affect tìieừ
reading. These two skills are useful for students to understand the general of a sentence
or a passage as a whole without knowing what every word means.
2.3ếlếl Skimming skill:
Skimming is used to gain a quick overview in order to identify the main idea or
general information of a text, students just past over the text lightly and hastily. When
students are skimming, their eyes begin to slide down a column of words, names,
figures, or phrases they do not actually read each entry. A word, name, figure or phrase

students should look for can:
• Appear as a title, subtitle, heading or subheading
• Appear in bold print, italics or color
• Be repeated throughout the paragraph
• Appear once at the beginning and is then referred to throughout the
paragraph by pronouns or by other words.
It is clear that a paragraph does not have all of these clues, but all paragraphs
have at least one of them. The following example illustrates looking for a word, name,
or phrase in the paragraph that appears in special print:
“The explosive growth of the World Wide Web is due largely to the
development of graphical browsers, software that allows you to move easily among the
millions of Web sites. By far the most popular browsers is Netscape, which is
employed at most colleges and universities, through it is facing a stiff
challenge from Microsoft’s Internet Explorer. Commercial on-line services such as
CompuServe, Prodigy, and America Online offer their own browsers.” (14,93)
The word in italics indicates the topic: browsers. The entire paragraph
discusses browsers, a way to move easily among millions of web sites. One or more


of the four clues described above will always help students determine the topic of
paragraph. Determining the topic is the starting point in comprehending as students
read. It is also a key to reading comprehension without understanding every word
appears in context.
Furthermore, they should consider reading the first or last sentence of each
paragraph is useful when they are seeking the general idea rather than
understanding individual words (19, 34) because the first sentence or last one of
each paragraph is often where the introduction or the summary is located. The
following excerpt is from a health textbook:
“Bulimia, a disorder characterized by eating followed by vomiting, may
occur with anorexia nervosa or as a separate illness with different psychological

roots. According to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, the symptoms of
bulimia are found in 40 to 50 percent of people with anorexia nervosa. As with
anorexia, the majority of bulimia victims are women, typically in their early
twenties, college-educated, single, and white. Unlike those with anorexia, the
victims of bulimia tend to be of nearly normal weight and have healthy, outgoing
personalities. The greatest difference is that a person with anorexia turns away from
food while a person with bulimia is obsessively drawn to it. It is obvious that there
are important similarities and differences between the eatine disorders bulimia and
anorexia. ” (14,129)
The topic of paragraph which is bulimia and anorexia is located at the last
sentence. As students read the paragraph, they must ask themselves, “What is the
most important point the authors want me to understand about bulimia and
anorexia?’. In spite of lots of unfamiliar technical words, students can find out the
answer to this question, the last sentence, is the stated main idea sentence. This
sentence contains the topic and it is a general statement that tells about the author’s
most important point - bulimia and anorexia.
2.3ếlế2 Scanning skill:
While skimming skill is used to know general information, scanning is the
special technique students should use to find detailed information without
understanding every word’s meaning. Skimming refers to the process of quickly
searching reading material in order to locate specific bits of information.


Scanning involves moving reader’s eyes quickly down the page seeking
specific words and phrases. Reader does not actually read but move the eyes across the
page and by using vertical section of the recognition span is able to cover three or four
lines of print at a movement. When reader reaches the information he needs, he reads it
thoroughly.
Reader probably scan when he searches for a phone number in a telephone
book, goes through the TV guide looking for a program to watch or looks up an

unknown word in the dictionary. If reader searches for a date, he should move his eyes
down the page looking for numbers. If reader looks for a person’s name, he should use
the inevitable capital letter as an aid. In other situations, using quotation marks,
hyphens, or italics is also helpful.
To sum up, when first meeting unfamiliar wors in reading, students should be
keep calm and decide whether they need to understand the exact meaning of the
unfamiliar words in order to understand the general sense of the sentence or passage. If
not, they had better use skimming and scanning skills to identify the neccessary
information. It is clear that, when students use these two skills, they would not only
accelerates your reading speed and flexibility, but also be more confident in reading
activity.
2.3.2 Recalling the word’s meaning by pronunciation:
When readers encounter an unfamiliar word or a familiar word without
remembering its meaning in reading, they should first sound it out or decode the word.
Reading decoding skills are critical component in the ability to read. In Reading in a
foreign language (Alderson, J.C., 1984), reading decoding skills is defined as “the
ability to make sense of printed words. This involves recalling and recognizing the
spoken word that is represented by the printed word. ” In
other words, reading decoding skills is the ability to understand that a printed word
represents the spoken word, and that this printed word is made of a sequence of
phonemes.
Barnett, M. (1988) give the definition: “Decoding skill is the ability to apply
readers ’ knowledge of letter-sound relationships, including knowledge of letter
patterns, to correctly pronounce written words”. Understanding these relationships


gives students the ability to recognize familiar words quickly and to figure out
words they haven't seen before.
In English, there is a good deal of regularity between the letters and the
sounds (phonemes), but there are also quite a few exceptions. There are very few

letters in English that always correspond to a single sound, and there is no one
sound that always corresponds to a single letter. English, it is said, has a “deep
orthography”, which basically just means that there are a lot of words that are not
spelled the way they sound (e.g. “colonel” or “choir”). This is illustrated by the
following table that shows the one-to-many relationship that exists between letters
and sounds (phonemes):
Table 2ề2: Letter-sound relationships
Letters
Words that represent different sounds each letter can
make
A
APPLE, AUTHOR, AUTHORITY, ANY, SAID, SAY, ALGAE
B

BOX, LAMB

c
D
E
F
G

CITY, COUNTRY, CHAIR
DOOR, LACKED
BED, BEAD, STEAK, EUREKA, THE, SEW

H

HOLE, PHONE, SHINE, CHORE, CHOIR, HOUR, EXHIBIT

1
J

FINE, LID, CEILING, WEIRD, GOITER
JAM, JALEPENO

K

KING, KNIFE

FOOD, OF
GIANT, GRUNT, RING, REIGN, SIGN, ENOUGH


L

LOVE, TORTILLA

M
N

MOON, MNEMONIC
NOON, KING

0
p
Q

BOY, BOOT, FOOT, BLOOD, COYOTE, OUNCE, ONCE,
PEOPLE, AMOEBA

PAT, PHONE, PSYCH, PNEUMATIC
QUEEN, MOSQUITO

R

ROOT, PERRIER

s
T
u

SAND, SUGAR, EASY, AISLE
TAN, THAN, THIN, LATCH, OFTEN

V

w

UNDER, POUND, UNIQUE, TULIP, POUR, AUTHOR,
AUTHORITY, CHURCH, BUSY, DIALOGUE
VINE, VOILA

X

WON, WREN, COW, LOW, AWFUL, FEW, WHICH,
WHOLE, TWO
RELAX, LUXURY, EXECUTIVE, XENON

Y
z

YES, PSYCH, THEY, SAYS, VERY, PYGMY
ZOO, WALTZ, RENDEZVOUS

Letter
Clusters
AU
EA

AUTHOR, AUTHORITY, LAUGH, BUREAU, RESTAURANT,
DINOSAUR, BEAUTY, GAUGE
EAT, CREATE, GREAT, IDEA, DEAF, HEAR, HEARD,
HEART, BEAR, BUREAU, BEAUTY

ou

OUT, YOU, YOUR, COULD, YOUNG, JOURNEY, ENOUGH

CH
TH

CHORE, SCHOOL
MOTH, MOTHER, FATHEAD

IE
00

PIECE, PIE, QUIET, FRIEND, SOLDIER
FOOD, FOOT, BLOOD, FLOOR

OA

TOAD, BOARD, BROAD

Al

TRAIN, SAID, AISLE, AGAIN, AIR

OUGH

COUGH, THOUGH, THROUGH, THOROUGH, THOUGHT,
ENOUGH

Good readers do not depend primarily on context to identify new words. When
good readers encounter an unknown word, they decode the word, name it, and then