Issue in Reading

A.    What is Reading?

The visible answer to the question is that a series of activity which involves identifying words and interpreting words that have different meanings in different sentences. However, the ability to interpret words requires readers to have a large extent on the prior knowledge that enables readers to predict the purpose of the written texts.

Besides sufficient background knowledge, readers also need to be aware of monitoring strategies, which is making repair of the reading text, to acquire a smooth and efficient reading activity. Further, readers involve in a meaning-based activity that is purpose and comprehension driven. All of these are elements of literacy events or literacy acts in the second or foreign language reading. However, the L1 literacy will affect the target language learners. As Cook (in Hudson, 2011:10) notes that the L1 is present in the L2 learners’ minds, whether the teacher wants it to be there or not.”

There are some assumptions in viewing literacy. Literacy in linguistics focuses on lexicon, syntax, and phoneme-grapheme correspondence. In addition, there is another focus that is cognitive which readers encountering text and constructing meaning through strategy and skill activation. The other factor is sociocultural dimension which views literacy through social practice, including links to ideology and power (Kucer in Hudson, 2011:10). Later, when we talk about reading in foreign language context, we also talk about reading assessment. 

  

B.     Reading Process

There are obviously some features in the reading process. Bransford and Johnson (in Hudson, 2011:14) conclude that it was only when a reader ha some pre-existing notion of what the text might be about that it is possible to determine what to do with the information that is being presented. The other is about prior assumption of text interpretation (or we call it as expectation). Also, in certain situation, readers deal with phoneme-grapheme correspondence and vocabulary knowledge as they read humor texts. Sometimes, readers are needed to have close and detailed reading.

Another important notion is understanding context within reading passages to capture the intended meaning which is meant to address intended audiences. Also, low-level processing and prerequisite skills are necessary as it also happens to the familiarity of readers to use the particular text.

Above all, we may take the red line that there are some variables in reading processes. Knowing the graphemes of a language is an important variable that is necessary all the time; others are variables in their importance. It involves reasons (the category of motivation the readers have), media (the physical entity that contains text), content (the content material), text structure and form (the cohesive structure and text genres), strategies and skill (the reading techniques).