Chapter 2

REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE AND STUDIES

This chapter presents the review of related literature and studies of different authors

from books and internet websites. It also contains the conceptual and theoretical

paradigm and framework of the study.

Related Literature

According to Sutari "reading is a process of getting the meaning of something

written or printed by interpreting its characters or symbols. Reading is a second

language that is defined as process of grasping full linguistics meaning in the new

language through the symbols used to present it.

According to Harris "reading is the meaningful interpretation of printed written verbal

symbols which involves sensing, perceiving, achieving meaning, learning and reacting in

variety of ways. From these definitions, it can be said that reading is an effort from the

students to get or transfer the meaning and information from the text by

understanding, grasping, translating and giving meaning to the written form. Therefore,

it can be concluded that reading is not only looking at words in the form of graphic

symbols but also getting meaning from the word to word to understand the content of a

text and to get information from the it.

According to Ivar Braten & Helge Stromso (2007) reading is often described as an

interactive process, where comprehension is a result of joint efforts from the author and

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the reader. The author has to formulate the content so that it is interpretable, whereas

the reader must mobilize the skills and knowledge needed to comprehend the text- a

joint venture. However, the reader is the one most likely to spoil the process; fail to

understand, give in and stop reading. Hence, the reader is considered to be the one

most responsible for gaining comprehension.

According to Maaagero & Siep Tonnessen (2006) it is important to focus on reading

comprehension, as will be shown in the following, beyond doubt. It is crucial to make

the students realize that reading, and reading with comprehension, is of vital

importance not only in school, but in everyday life. Whether there is a need for learning

something new, increasing knowledge or searching for information, one has to be able

to read with comprehension. The ability to read includes several aspects and

components that all ought to be focused upon.

According to Baumann (2009) there is a clear connection between pupils'

vocabulary and their reading comprehension. A good vocabulary will ascertain reading

development which will lead to increase reading comprehension. With good, or

sufficient reading comprehension, the pupils may increase their knowledge. Hence, a

focus on vocabulary might reduce the differences in vocabulary, and in turn in reading

comprehension.

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 Hudson () explains that reading and understanding are the important things that we

need to use in our daily life. Only by reading, the people can acquire the speed and skill

he will need for practical purpose when he leaves the school.

Oberholzer stated that "understanding the reading text is far more important than

knowing the mechanical skill of reading. Without comprehension, reading would serve

no purpose. It means that understanding the text is very important to be achieved by

the students because reading is not simply about mechanical skill. It helps the readers to

understand the world, learn about the past and plan for the future.

Westwood () argues that in order to understand text readers must use information

that they already possess to filter, interpret, organize and reflect upon the incoming

information they get from the text. He thinks that efficient interpretation of text

involves a combination of word recognition skills, linking new information to prior

knowledge, and application of appropriate strategies such as locating the main idea,

making connections, questioning, inferring and predicting. Therefore, understanding the

text is not an easy thing, so that is why there are many students who find difficulties in

understanding the text.

Kuswidyastutik said that someone's understanding of a thing can be measured by

whether or not he was answering questions related to a certain text and the difficulty

can be seen from the mistakes he did while working on the questions.

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 According to Pang (2003) reading is defined as understanding written texts. He

says that reading consists of two related processes: word recognition and

comprehension. Word recognition is defined as the process of getting how written

symbols correspond to one's spoken language while comprehension is the process of

making the meaning of words, sentences and connected texts. He added that the reader

who has background knowledge, vocabulary, grammatical knowledge, experience with

text and other strategies can help them understand written texts. He added that

comprehension is the process of making sense of words, sentences and connected text.

He says that comprehension is the process of deriving the meaning of one word to

another in a text.

Alderson (2000) defines reading as an enjoyable, intense, private activity in which

the readers get much pleasure and can totally absorb the reading.

According to Aikat (2007) reading plays a very important role in enhancing the minds

of young individuals, developing their "capacity for focused attention" as well as their

"imaginative growth".

According to Klingner (2007) reading comprehension is "the process of constructing

meaning by coordinating a number of complex processes that included word reading,

word and word knowledge and fluency". It refers to the ability in interpreting the words,

understanding the meaning and the relationships between ideas conveyed in a text.

Readers typically make use of background knowledge, vocabulary, grammatical

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knowledge, experience with a text and other strategies to help them understand the

written texts. Interpreting the words, understanding the meaning and the relationships

between ideas conveyed in a text.

Related Studies

A study conducted by Ozdemir (2009) stressed that reading is fundamental in

getting knowledge as all the lessons and learning activities are mostly based on the

power of comprehensive reading; indeed, it is really necessary to read comprehensively.

In addition, reading comprehensively really affects a learner’s education and his life as a

whole. Learning in any lesson depends on understanding of the learning instrument of

that lesson; thus, a learner who cannot read comprehensively finds it difficult for

him/her to be successful in his or her lessons.

Furthermore, Ono (2004) in his conducted study entitled ____ emphasized that

reading has the potential to help English language learners become better readers and

make improvements in other aspects of their English skills.

According to Al – Khateeb (2010) reading comprehension is considered the real core

for the reading process; and the big process around which all other processes are

centered. Comprehension is the peak of the reading skills and the basis for all reading

processes, it is viewed by some researchers as the ultimate objective of the reading

process, since he who does not comprehend what he reads is considered as if he has

not read".

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 Hafiz & Tudor (1989) in their study entitled "Importance of Reading" reading

comprehension enables the reader to interact with the text in a meaningful way. For

many, there are doors to lifetime of reading recreation and enjoyment. Moreover, the

experiential and cultural background of the ESL reader has a strong effect on reading

comprehension and ESL learners, early in their development of English, can write English

and can do so for various purposes. They investigated whether extensive reading for

pleasure could affect an improvement in ESL students’ linguistic skills, with particular

reference to reading and writing. The results showed a marked improvement in the

performance of the experimental subjects, especially in terms of their writing skills.

Du Boulay (1999) ( cited in Khateeb, 2010) assures that weakness in the reading

ability constitutes one of the biggest problem that students encounter at all educational

levels. Thus, teaching reading is viewed as a teaching objective at the different

educational stage; and the key to success in other subjects of study.

A number of studies were cited in the article "Importance of Reading

Comprehension in Second Language Learning" (2009) and revealed significant findings.

Pigada & Schmitt (2006) explored whether an extensive reading program can enhance

lexical knowledge or not and assess 133 words. They examined whether one month of

extensive reading enhanced knowledge of this target words' spelling, meaning, and

grammatical characteristics. The results showed that knowledge of 65% of the target

words was enhanced in some way. Spelling was strongly enhanced, even from a small

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number of exposures. Meaning and grammatical knowledge were also enhanced, but

not to the same extent. Overall, the study indicated that much vocabulary acquisition is

possible from extensive reading than previous studies have suggested.

Second, Sewjee (2008) writes that may be, reading has more important role to play

than speaking and listening for a learner as without reading, he cannot achieve his goal.

While reading a book, he can travel to all around the world while sitting in his place and

can make contact with all kinds of people and comes across all sorts of dialects. He

learns to distinguish between good and bad and acquires all kinds of information, which

helps to be a better speaker and a better writer.

Rayner et.al (2001) said that reading comprehension is defined as the level of

understanding of a text or message. This understanding comes from the interaction

between the words that are written and how they trigger knowledge outside the text or

message.

According to Pressley (2003), as cited by Pardo (2004), reading comprehension is

a skill that can be strengthened and improved through more reading practice. Increasing

vocabulary, extensive reading and critical reading are some of the practices that can be

used to strengthen and refine the person's ability to comprehend any text. However,

reading comprehension fails for a number of reasons. One of the reasons is the lack of

knowledge base. This deals on how much knowledge a reader has about the subject he

or she is reading. When the reader is more familiar with the happenings in the text

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because they likely are similar in many ways to his or her own life experiences, then he

or she can easily generate the necessary inferences from the text.

Basaraba (2013) stated in his study that reading comprehension is a complex process

that requires different building- block skills. One model of reading comprehension

proposes that understanding what we read is really the result of three levels of skills:

literal comprehension, inferential comprehension and evaluative comprehension.

Reading is the true backbone of most learning. Everything starts with written word

--- whether it's math, science or even home economics. As students go up the

educational ladder, more reading is usually required as subjects become more dense

and challenging. (Philippine Star, 2010)

Tongson, Jr. (2005) as cited by Nangleg (2007) attest to the deterioration of reading

skills of the pupils in the country when the Every Child a Reader Program (ECARP) has

been implemented and the Bureau of Elementary Education (BEE) supports this

program by developing the Philippine Informal Reading Inventory (Phil-IRI).

Department of Education Secretary Br. Armin A. Luistro (2012) said that it is important

to assess the reading capability of students because reading is the foundation of

allacademic learning. He added that if a pupil fails to master basic reading skills at the

outset, it will be a constant struggle for them to get through other disciplines

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successfully, thus depriving them of the chance to become literate and productive

individuals.

Theoretical Framework

The PASS stands for Planning, Attention, Simultaneous and Successive theory of

cognitive processes (Naglieri & Das 1997) is based largely on the neuropsychological

work of Luria. The first process is Planning, which involves executive functions

responsible for controlling, organizing and monitoring behavior. For example, shifting

attention during reading to different parts of the text and selectively allocating

resources and effort to different information involve this kind of processing. Planning

skills represent one source of individual differences in reading comprehension. Indeed,

successful reading comprehension depends on higher-level executive skills such as

planning and working memory ( Baddely, 2003;Vellutino, Scanlon, & Lyon, 200). Skilled

readers are more likely to plan and monitor successfully their own reading (Palincsar &

Brown, 1984; Pearson & Fielding, 1991; Pressley, 2000; Tierney & Cunningham, 1984).

The second is the Attention, maintenance of attention ensures sufficient arousal

levels and focus on specific stimuli. For example, performance in selective attention and

reading comprehension tasks is likely to be related when there is a need to inhibit

stimuli that are not the primary focus of attention ( when a word or a sentence is

degraded or masked by non-targets in the surrounded). The other two process are

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Simultaneous and successive processing enable encoding, transformation and retention

of information.

Simultaneous processing is relevant when the task or behavior requires integration

into whole units of information. For example, recognition of whole words by sight

involves this kind of processing, as does comprehension of the meaning of an entire

sentence in a paragraph. One way simultaneous processing exerts its effects on reading

comprehension indirectly is via orthographic processing. Orthographic processing

supports spelling, as well as reading fluency. Successive processing is relevant when the

task or behavior requires organization of individual units in a serial order. For example,

word decoding and spelling involve this kind of processing. One way successive exerts its

effects on reading comprehension indirectly via phonological processing. Phonological

processing encompasses a wide range of skills involved in manipulating the sounds of

speech.

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 Attention
Planning

Successive Simultaneous

PASS Theory by Naglieri & Das 1997

Figure 1
Theoretical Paradigm

Conceptual Framework
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 The framework of this study is based on the system concept. The system concept

consisted of the input, process to be implemented during the research procedures, data

analysis and validation, and output.

The input includes the profile of selected Grade 7 students, the factors that affect

the reading comprehension of the respondents, the extent to which the respondents

prefer to use gadgets than reading texts and the recommendations that may be offered

by the respondents to improve the study.

The process consists of preparation of survey questionnaires, data gathering and

analysis and interpretation of data. It also includes the distribution of the survey

questionnaires to the respondents in order to gather the necessary information needed

in the study to come up with an output specifically a reading material with

corresponding guide questions for them to answer as well as comprehend the text.

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17
Input. Profile of Process. Output
selected
Grade 7
students

The factors
Preparatio
Input. that affect the Process.
reading n of Survey
Questionar A reading
Outputcomprehensio es material with a
n of the
respondents guide questions
Data for them to
Extent to Gathering answer as well as
which the comprehend the
Analysis
respondents text. Using the
and
prefer to use guide questions
Interpreta
gadgets than given in the text
tion of
reading text they can now
Data
comprehend it.
Recommenda Gathered
tions that
may be
offered by the
respondents
to improve
this study

Feedback
Figure 2

Conceptual Paradigm

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 Notes

http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?
q=cache:http://local.Isu.edu.ph/institutional research
office/publications/vol.16no.1/3.html

https://repository.up.ac.za/bitstream/handle/2263/28049/02chapter2.pdf?sequence=3

http://digilib.uinsby.ac.id/701/3/Bab%202.pdf

http://eprints.uny.ac.id/9919/3/CHAPTER%202%20-%2006202244061.pdf

https://sites.google.com/comm2notes/review-of-related-literature-and-source-notes

Sutari, Basic Reader for Teaching, 2000, 20.

https://repository.usfca.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1125&context=diss

http://shodhganga.inflibnet.ac.in/bitstream/10603/33114/9/09_chapter%202.pdf

http://everychildreadytoread.org/literature-review-2010

Aikat, Debashis(2007). Patterns of Reading. Encyclopedia of Children, Adolescents, and

the Media Vol.2. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications. P699-702.

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