Human
naturally was born to be thought how to read. This is because reading is the
basis of all instructions in all aspects of learning. Therefore, it is
essential for students to know how to read comprehensively. Learning how to read is an important and
difficult task for the students in their first language development even gets
more complex in reading through their second language which is English. In
contrast, Chomsky’s theory about children shows that they have the capability
to acquire language. In his theory of Universal Grammar supposes that children
posses the capacity of gaining the entire vocabulary, morphology, syntax, and
most of the phonology of a given language (Chomsky, 1959). Nevertheless,
students find reading still challenging and hard to cope with as there are many
skills of reading that the students need to achieve. Reading applies the process
of conscious and unconscious thinking, because it deals with the activities or
skills of understanding the written words. Reading can be seen as an
interactive communication between a reader and a text. Students as the readers
might have several strategies to reconstruct the meaning of what the author
expects them to obtain after reading.
When the students read a book, they will correlate the content of the
book with their prior knowledge and experiences in order to catch the meaning.
When they process the information from the book, the students’ first language
and cultural background determine their comprehension in reading. In addition,
how they interpret the text will vary due to the different expectation about
language structure and cultural attitudes toward literacy. Literacy is a set of
attitudes and beliefs about the ways of using spoken and written language that
are acquired in the course of a person’s socialization into a specific cultural
context (Mikulecky, 2001). Therefore, reading and literacy are two important
things that cannot be separated and significantly influence the effective
reading for ESL students.
Since, they begin to
read the book in English as their second language, they require to apply the
components of literacy success. They need to take at least three related roles
while they are reading for example reader as a code breaker, text analyst, and
text user. When the students act as if they are a code breaker, they need to be
able to crack and solve the code so that they can get the meaning out of the
written script, in this case is the book itself. Besides, as a text analyst the
students read a text as a crafted object which is written by the author who has
a set of assumptions and ideology. An effective reader need to read critically
as they concern to be a text analyst, recognize what the assumptions in the
text about, not said, implied, or unquestioned. Furthermore, in the role of a
text user the students are demanded to participate in the social activities in
which written text plays a major part. The interactions that children have
around literacy events construct their understanding about how they are
expected to read particular texts. In order to construct the affectivity in
reading for ESL students, there are some considerations that need to be carried
out. This essay will discuss the ESL students’ problems in reading,
implementation of theory and research in reading, skills in reading and
instructional approach in reading.
As
we know that reading is a complex process of absorbing the meaning through the
words in the text, moreover the students read the text in English as their
second language that makes it even more complicated. What are some problems
that lead the students into trouble while reading? The first problem is Language
proficiency. Lee and Schallert (1997) state that the construct of language
proficiency is not a simple one as it relates to language competence, and the
conscious linguistic knowledge of the rules and forms of the language, and the
ability to speak, listen, read, and write the language in contextually
appropriate ways. Therefore, language proficiency becomes one of the most
challenging matters in reading as it has many components that students need to
be expert in. For example, to be able to comprehend the reading task the
students necessitate not only the ability of listening but also the others
components in language proficiency. A student who is really good in speaking
does not guarantee that he/she is able to understand the meaning of the reading
task. Consequently, the components in language proficiency are interrelated
each other to come up with reading comprehensively for ESL students. The second
problem is phonological phonemic Awareness. Instead of trying to comprehend the
content in reading, the students also require to be aware of the phonological
phonemic principles. When we read, we try to pronounce every word in our mind,
or just speak it out loud. Thus, it affects the effective of reading. The
English system writing often spelled differently with the way we produce the
sounds. For instance, in the morphological relationship between a certain
words, the word electric we pronounce it with ‘k’ at the last letter. In other
words, the phonological phonemic principles add more complexities in reading. The
third problem is Vocabulary. Another difficulty is the limited vocabulary of
the students. Students with more vocabulary they already have will be able to
comprehend the reading task more than the students who have less vocabulary.
Even, sometimes vocabulary can lead the students in misinterpreting the
sentences in the text. As it is very significant in reading comprehension, the
students ought to gain as many new vocabularies as they can. The more students
read, the better their vocabulary becomes.
And the more vocabulary they know, the better they can read.
The fourth problem is background knowledge. Other factors as the contributing
the ESL students’ higher risk of developing difficulties learning to read is
background knowledge. Researchers agree that background knowledge is crucial
factor in reading comprehension, since reading deals with relating the readers’
experience to a text. Cultural background of the students is usually very
different from one to other students. The students bring to the reading process
is culturally based, culturally biased, and often culture-specific, it is
important that teachers be particularly sensitive to reading problems that
result from differences between students' background knowledge and the implicit
cultural knowledge that a text presupposes (Carrell & Eisterhold, 1983).
Cognitive
psychologists have shown in their research that students learn new strategies
or thinking processes most effectively when they are consciously aware of what
they are doing (Brown, Armbruster, and Baker, 1986). Once students are conscious of the processes,
they can control their comprehension and apply appropriate strategies as needed
for comprehending a text. As it is
stated in the theory of some experts, the teachers might consider and relate
the theory and research to teach the students how to practice reading. Another
theory shows us that Interacting and talking about text in particular ways is
essential. Others found that students
develop literate skills when teachers encourage them to talk about written
language, when teachers model comprehension strategies for them, and when
students have opportunities to talk to each other about how they make sense of
a text (Hoffman and Heath, 1986). After knowing the theory then the next step
is the practice reading itself for the students. What the students need to do
to comprehend the texts is important to be acquainted with so that the students
can improve their skill in reading. According to Beatrice S. Mikulecky, in
order to read well the students need to apply these following steps to practice
their reading such as the first is students need to develop a schema of the
reading process that includes the idea that reading is more than translating,
but reading is thinking, the second is talk about their reading and explain how
they make sense of a text, the third is read extensively for pleasure in
English and discuss their reading with someone who can model the literate
behaviors expected in an English-language context, the fourth is break the
habit of reading every word by reading faster, the fifth is Learn to vary their
reading rate to suit their purpose in reading, the sixth is Employ top-down
processes effectively by learning to make connections between what they already
know and what they are reading, the seventh is Learn reading and thinking
skills that fluent readers of English employ unconsciously to strengthen both
top-down and bottom-up processing abilities, the eighth is Enhance bottom-up
processing by acquiring the most useful vocabulary and by learning strategies
for guessing meaning in context, the ninth is Master the basic 2,000 words that
constitute approximately 80 percent of texts in English, the last is Acquire
specific reading comprehension skills they can apply strategically. By
implementing those steps above, the students are expected to be able to read
more comprehensively and gain more new knowledge from reading.
Extensive
reading is one of a kind in doing reading. It is highly expected to do for
students who want to improve their reading skill. When the students extensively
reading means that they do scanning and skimming through the text. Hafiz and
Tudor state that the pedagogical value attributed to extensive reading is based
on the assumption that exposing learners to large quantities of meaningful and
interesting L2 material will, in the long run, produce a beneficial effect on
the learners’ command of the L2. The successful of extensive reading can be
shown significantly if the students are asked to share what their reading with
others, and make a reading report afterward. The students can do the extensive
reading independently; furthermore they can read anywhere they want, either at
school or home. Day and Bamford (1998) have documented the benefit of extensive
reading, which include development of a positive attitude toward reading second
language, the increasing of motivation to read more, the improvement of reading
fluency, gains in vocabulary and grammar knowledge and development in writing
in the second language.
There
are some reading skills that the students should establish in order to be able
to comprehend the reading task such as automatic decoding when they are being able to recognize a word at a
glance, previewing and predicting as the students can give the text a quick
once-over to be able to guess what is to come, scanning when they are able to
look through a text very rapidly for specific information, recognizing patterns
of relationships is to identifying the relationships between ideas; the overall
structure of the text, guessing the meaning of unknown words from the context
by using such clues as knowledge of word parts, syntax, and relationship
patterns, skimming the text quickly to get the overview of a passage or book,
etc. Considering the importance of improving the students’ reading skills,
teachers, however, are supposed to be able to use the instruction approach to
teach them. The teachers need to explain the purpose of working on this reading
skill, and convince the students of its importance in reading effectively.
Next, the teachers guide the students to work on an example of using the reading
skills with the whole class. The
students need to explain their thinking aloud as they do the exercise. In
addition, the teachers also assign the students to work in pairs on an exercise
where they practice using the same skill and require them to explain their
thinking to each other as they work. Discussing the students’ answers with the
whole class is important to do, then ask them to explain how they got their
answers, encourage polite disagreement and require explanations of any
differences in their answers. Ask individual students to complete an exercise
using the skill to check their own ability and confidence in using it. In
future lessons, the teachers lead the students to apply the skill, as well as
previously mastered skills, to a variety of texts.
Learning
to read in a second language is a complex, and therefore challenging,
developmental process that is influenced by a multiplicity of factors and which
has many prerequisites. The students who
speak their native language rather than English upon entering kindergarten or
first grade require a specific set of instructional steps in order to develop
the necessary pre-reading skills, such as phonological and phonemic awareness
for the English language, a reasonable oral language proficiency in English,
and the necessary background knowledge in order to access meaning from the
written text. Many different studies attempted to evaluate a variety of
instructional approaches with regard to the language of instruction and the
timing of initial reading instruction for second-language learners.
Oakes,
J. (1986). Tracking, inequality, and the
rhetoric of school reform: Why schools don't change. Journal
of Education, 168, 61-80.
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