CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
INTRODUCTION
1.1 The background of the study
Reading is a thinking process which dominantly exercise person’s eyes and brain in order to comprehend a text. As one of the language skills, reading also plays an important role because reading has become a part of person’s daily life.
The reading skill is very important in the education field therefore students of elementary to university level need to be trained in order to have a good reading skill. They have to read their compulsory books or other materials related to their lesson. Especially for students who are studying languages, reading is one of the skills which has to be learned and considered as the most important one because it can influence other language skill (listening, speaking, and writing).
In reading comprehension, the message to be imposed in the written form is the most important element that the students must recognize, because the primary purpose of reading is to know the thoughts expressed in the printed material. Reading comprehension is the ability to read text, process it and understand its meaning. An individual's ability to comprehend text is influenced by their traits and skills. That’s why, reading with comprehension is only a way for the students to arrive at what they want to know from the reading material. However, the problem is how to make them comprehend the readings. Many students often have difficulties in reading comprehensively. A significant number of students lack the necessary skills to perform successfully when reading texts. Because they lack these skills, they are unable to contribute meaningfully discussions in the class. Overall, the students fail to complete assignments; they do not do well on their exams, and many impressions academic failure. Effectively this reasons above need and may require the use of various strategies to get comprehension in reading. There are many strategies can be used to improve student’s reading comprehension in struggling the information of texts being read. There are numbers of approaches to influence reading comprehension, including improving one's vocabulary and reading strategies. Out of various strategies is scaffolding strategy where’s appropriate to help students in comprehending the text easier. Scaffolding develops students’ reading comprehension in English classes. Each students receive direct guidance from the teacher including the motivation support and assistance in learning the reading material through the steps learning in scaffolding because students need to read and to comprehend effectively. Students will eventually be able to demonstrate reading comprehension independently.
Therefore, it is assumed that scaffolding can help success in teaching English especially in teaching reading. Through reading scaffolding instruction, teacher can enhance his experience, develop new concept, solve student’s problem, and broaden horizon of thinking, which are needed to ensure continuing personal growth of the students.
1.2 The Problem of The Study
Based on the background of the study, the problems formulated into form questions as the following:
- Does the scaffolding instruction strategy significantly affect the students reading comprehension?
- Does scemata affect the students’reading comprehension?
- Is there any interaction between scaffolding instruction strategy and scemata on students reading comprehension?
Scaffolding intruction and scemata are two factors that influence student’s succesful on reading comprehension. So the objectives of the study can be stated as followa:
- To find out whether scaffolding instruction strategy significantly affect the students reading comprehension
- To find out whether scemata affect the students’reading comprehension
- To find out wheter there is interaction between scaffolding instruction strategy and scemata on student’s reading comprehension
The findings of the study are expected to be useful for:
- English eachers to apply this strategy in teaching learning process especially in reading class on student’s reading comprehension.
- Students, to gain knowledge to be used in their real life through reading text and it will ease them to comprehend the text.
- Readers, to improve and motivate their reading through scaffolding instruction strategy.
There are many factors that enable the readers to comprehend a reading text such as motivation towards reading, background of knowledge, reading purpose, reading strategy and all of them can affect students succesful in reading, this study is conducted to investigate the effect of scaffolding instruction strategies and schemata at classroom tasks on teaching reading comprehension to the learners in grade 11 of SMA.
CHAPTER II
REVIEW OF LITERATURE
REVIEW OF LITERATURE
2. 1 Reading Comprehension
Reading comprehension is most likely to occur when students are reading what they want to read, or at least what they see some good reason to read. Reading with comprehension means understanding what has been read. It is an active, thinking process that depens not only on comprehension skill but also on the student’s experiences and prior knowledge. Brassell (2008: 18) inserts that reading comprehension is the ability to take the information from written text and do something with it in a way that demonstrates knowledge or understanding of that information. Reading comprehension involves understanding the vocabulary seeing the relationship among words and concepts, organizing ideas, recognizing the author’s purpose, making judgments, and evaluating. Word recognition skills are perhaps the most important factors in determining the degree of comprehension. Attempting, to comprehend without an adequate knowledge of vocabulary is really imposible, it will take time and effort.
To understand reading comprehension, one should begin by analyzing what comprehension involves and how it relates to the entire reading process. Reading comprehension involves more than knowledge of structure and vocabulary. It requires ability to understand the passage being read so that the goal of reading which generally to get information from written resources can be reached.
As the readers, who know the written language well, can move from marks on page to words and phrases quickly. Knowledge of the language in its written form provides the readers with the key to the identification of the basic forms and meanings of the language of the text. Based on the explanation above, it is important for the teacher to select a better strategy in order to help the students to achieve the goals of reading.
2. 2 The Process of Reading
Process is step that happens in someone or something before reach something. It is impossible if someone directly gets something without a process. Like the other skill reading has a process.
According to Burns (1984:4-5) the process of reading is extremely complex. In reading, students must be able to:
- Perceive the symbols set before them (sensory aspect).
- Interpret what they see as symbols or words (perceptual aspect).
- Follow the lines, logical, and grammatical patterns of the written words (sequential aspects).
- Recognize the connections between symbols and sounds, between words and what they represent (associational aspect).
- Relate words back to direct experiences to give the words meaning (experiential aspect).
- Remember what they learned in the past and incorporate new ideas and facts (learning aspect).
- Make inferences from and evaluate the material (thinking aspect).
- Deal with personal interests and attitudes that affect the task of reading (affective aspect).
2. 3 The Purpose of Reading
Rivers and Temperly (1978: 187) suggest that there are seven main purposes for reading:
- To obtain information for some purposes or because we are curious about some topic.
- To obtain instructions how to perform some task for our work or daily life (e. g. , knowing how an appliance works).
- To act in a play. Play a game, do a puzzle.
- To keep in touch with friends by correspondence or to understand business letters.
- To know when or where something will take place or what is available.
- To know what is happening or has happened (as reported in newspapers, magazines, reports).
- For enjoyment or excitements.
2. 4 Levels of Comprehension
Comprehension is the process of mind action in understanding the meaning of written or spoken language. In relation to the reading comprehension, there are four levels of comprehension, namely: literal, interpretive, critical, and creative reading (Burns, 1984:177). It means that students’ levels in reading will increase as their growth into mature readers.
2. 4. 1 Literal Reading Comprehension
Understanding the ideas and information directly stated in the passage which involves acquiring information that is directly stated in a selection, is important in and of itself and is also a perquisite for higher-level understanding. Recognizing stated main ideas, details, causes and effects, and sequences is the basis of literal comprehension, and a through understanding of vocabulary, sentence meaning and paragraph meaning is important.
The following is a text used as the media to explain how level of comprehension depicted on questions of comprehension (the same text will be used repeatedly in order to explain comprehension of interpretive, critical and creative reading)
2. 4. 2 Interpretive Reading Comprehension
Interpretive reading involves reading between the lines or making inferences. It is the process of deriving ideas that are implied rather than directly stated. Skills for interpretive reading include:
1. Inferring main ideas of passages in which the main ideas are not directly stated,
2. Inferring cause and effect relationship when they are not directly stated,
3. Inferring referents of pronouns,
4. Inferring referents of adverbs,
5. Inferring omitted words,
6. Detecting mood,
7. Detecting the author’s purpose in writing, and
8. Drawing conclusions.
2. 4. 3 Critical Reading Comprehension
Critical Reading is evaluating written material-comparing the ideas discovered in the material with known standards and drawing conclusions about their accuracy, appropriateness, and timeliness. The critical reader must be an active reader, questioning, searching for facts, and suspending judgment until he or she has considered all of the material. Critical reading depens upon literal comprehension and interpretive comprehension and grasping implied ideas is especially important. In critical comprehension present in a passage:analyzing, evaluating and personally reacting to information in terms of some standards.
2. 4. 4 Creative Reading Comprehension
Creative reading involves going beyond the material presented by the author. It requires readers to think as they read, just as critical reading does, and it also requires them to use their imaginations. It is concerned with the production of new ideas, the development of new insight, fresh approaches, and original constructs. Teachers must carefully nurture creative reading, trying not to ask only questions that have absolute answers, since these will tend not to encourage the diverse processes characteristic of creative reading. The skills needed in creative reading involve understanding cause-effect relationship in a story, solving problems, and producting new creations.
3. Scaffolding Instruction as a Teaching Strategy
Scaffolding Theory was first introduced in the late 1950s by Jerome Bruner, a cognitive psychologist. He uses the term to describe young children in language acquisition. Among the general public, the term scaffolding or scaffolding to be understood as a term related to building construction techniques, namely the composition of the effort put bamboo / wood beam / iron as a footstool while building a building, especially in the construction of concrete buildings. When the concrete construction is considered capable of standing strong, then the composition of bamboo / wood beam / iron it would be revoked. In the context of learning, the use of the term scaffolding or scaffolding appears to be considered a relatively new and increasingly popular along with the emergence of the idea of active learning-oriented learning theory.
Simply, scaffolding learning can be defined as a strategy of providing support in a structured study, conducted at an early stage to encourage students to learn independently. The provision of learning support is not done continuously, but in line with the increase in the ability of students, teachers gradually had to reduce and release the students to learn independently. Thus, the essence and principle of work does not seem much different from the scaffolding in the context of setting up a building. Scaffolding learning as a learning aid strategy (assisted-learning) can be done when students plan, implement and reflect on learning tasks
Children first begin to learn to speak through the help of their parents, children instinctively have had to learn the structure of language. Scaffolding is an interaction between adults and children that allow children to carry anything beyond his own business. Scaffolding prepared by the learner to not change the nature or degree of difficulty of the task, but with scaffolding provided enable learners to successfully complete the task.
Bruner and Ross (1976) define scaffolding as a metaphor for the interaction between an expert and a novice engaged in a problem- solving task or the adult controlling those elements of the task that are initially beyond the learner's capacity, thus permitting him to concentrate upon and complete only those elements that are within his range of competence. Ellis (2004) states the social dimension of the development of a new skill is handled in sociocultural theory through the notion of scaffolding. Scaffolding is the dialogic process by which one speaker assists another in performing a function that he or she cannot perform alone. The results of students reading showed implementing scaffolding strategy effectively in the process of instruction students‘ reading comprehension upgraded students‘ reading comprehension.
According to Huggins (2002) the concept of scaffolding is based on the work of Vygotsky, who proposed that with an adult's assistance, children could accomplish tasks that they ordinarily could not perform independently. Using instructional scaffolds to help develop reading comprehension in English classes provide the support, assistance, and the confidence students need to read and to comprehend effectively.
Scaffolding Instruction describes specialized teaching strategies geared to support learning when students are first introduced to a new subject. Scaffolding gives students a context, motivation, or foundation from which to understand the new information that will be introduced during the coming lesson. Scaffolding should be considered fundamental to good, solid teaching for all students, not just those with learning disabilities or second language learners. In order for learning to progress, scaffolds should be gradually removed as instruction continues, so that students will eventually be able to demonstrate comprehension independently.
Scaffolding is a teaching strategy that focuses on raising students' abilities one step at a time and removing support as the student progresses. This encourages independence and enables the students to be active learners. Scaffolding begins with lessons that are just a step beyond what the learners are able to accomplish unassisted; the teacher builds on the tudents' revious knowledge and then removes himself as the support, allowing students to master and internalize the content. Scaffolding instructional strategy used whereby the teacher models the desired learning strategy or task, then gradually shifts responsibility to the students.
Another scaffolding strategy is for the teacher to model the appropriate thinking or working skills in the classroom. Such modeling helps children learn to operate in the school culture for developing student understanding and provides an actual example in language arts instruction in the classroom.
3. 1 Scaffolding Activities
A teacher utilizes scaffolding activities in the classroom to provide students an equal chance at learning by providing specialized instruction support where needed. Diverse student capabilities exist within the classroom. Scaffolding activities make concepts understandable and achievable for each student. The teacher works with and guides the student while learning the material until the student is confident and able to work independently.
1. Book Walk
This entails looking at the book's cover and browsing through the pages to view illustrations and the word format. The student forms predictions and assumptions in his head about the book's plot, setting and theme during this pre-reading strategy. Once he reads the book, he is able to find if his predictions were correct or not. This information aids in comprehending the material.
The students in this step asked to imagine what the reading material about in their own prediction in their head. The teacher observes them if they are correct or not based on the reading material.
2. Learning Stations
Use learning stations to provide the learner a chance to practice skills independently. Place the stations around the classroom. Use tri-fold boards to make the information easily accessible. One to three students rotate through the stations to work on activities, play games or read extra information related to class. The computer can serve as a station where students work on interactive materials. Stations scaffold learning by providing the opportunity for self discovery.
In this section teacher provides the material to the student. Teacher will also provide the tools that serve to stimulate students in finding information related to the learning material such as information on the board, use a dictionary, or a computer and electronics that can access other information. Students will train their ability to work on reading the text while teachers observe student’s work.
3. Graphic Organizers
Graphic organizers visually organize and segment information to make it more comprehensible. Graphic organizers are more effective to use during reading as a form of note taking. Vocabulary knowledge also increases when using organizers. There are many variations of graphic organizers suitable to use with any content area. The struggling learner may have difficulty focusing on ideas in the text. The organizer categorizes these ideas to make concepts easier to remember and study.
This concept is where students built their knowledge to comprehend the text quickly through building their vocabulary knowledge so that the text easier to understand. they would categorize the easy words into difficult words to understand.
4. Teacher Modeling
The teacher modeling the material provides the student with a clear example of concepts. This direct instruction time lets students ask questions and practice solutions with the teacher. The teacher is able to check for student understanding and vary the pace. Through modeling, the instructor shares her enthusiasm for the material and introduces "multi-sensory instruction. " This instruction may be tactile, kinesthetic, auditory or visual to support the students' various learning styles.
On teacher modeling, the teacher gives examples and clear concept of reading text then give questions to the students based on the material. This time direct instruction allows students to ask questions and exercise solutions with the teacher. Teacher can check students' understanding and varying speeds. Of observation, teachers can see whether students succeed in understanding the reading text or not.
Meanwhile, Applebee and Langer identify five (5) scaffolding learning steps are:
- Intentionally: Classifying complex parts to be controlled by students into specific sections and clearly and is the unified whole to achieve competency as a whole.
- Appropriateness: focuses on providing assistance to those aspects that students have not mastered the fullest.
- Structure: provide a model for students to learn from the model shown. The model can be given through the process of thinking, verbalized in words or through actions. Then, students were asked to explain what they have learned from the model.
- Collaboration: to collaborate and provide a response to the task at hand students.
- Internalization: establish ownership of the knowledge that students have mastered so well and become a part of him.
3. 2 The Advantages of Scaffolding Instruction In The Classroom
Peters (2001) defined that Scaffolding is a teaching technique used to build connections for learners by establishing details surrounding a unit before it is actually taught. Scaffolding allows the teacher to build a bridge from the learners' current knowledge to the information being taught. Scaffolding is properly performed by a teacher by modeling a given task and slowly transferring the knowledge to the learner so he can firmly grasp the subject matter.
1. Engaging the Learner
Through scaffolding, the learner is engaged in an active process of learning. The teacher builds on the knowledge the learner has of a particular topic. Scaffolding is like a research assignment in which the learner is made to find the solution to unanswered questions. This motivates the learner and gives him an urge to learn more.
2. Minimizing Frustration
Scaffolding minimizes the learner's level of frustration. It can be used to "cool down" learners who are easily frustrated when learning with their peers. A learner's behavior can be monitored, and time can be taken to counsel her on the frustration she builds while learning with the others the same class.
This teaching strategy is used to establish a connection to students by establishing the details before the materials are taught. Especially in understanding the reading text is very necessary because Scaffolding allows teachers to build a bridge information of knowledge when students are taught. Teacher with modeling assignments are given to students in reading the text and gradually transfer the knowledge to the learners so that they can firmly grasp the subject matter. Learners are made to find solutions to unanswered questions independently in learning to comprehend reading text.
3. 3 The Disadvantages of Scaffolding Instruction In The Classroom
Scaffolding can be disadvantageous for teachers, because it necessitates giving up control to allow learners to learn at their own pace. It is also time-consuming; you might not have adequate time to complete your entire scaffolding lesson. On certain occasions, you may be forced to cut short the time allocated for each student in order to accommodate all learners. This can result in frustration, and the students' urge to learn can slowly fade.
1. Need for Training
In order to handle learners in scaffolding lessons, teachers need professional training. This teaching strategy requires the teacher to allow the students to make some mistakes in order to learn. Teachers not trained specifically in this method are unlikely to intentionally allow pupils to make mistakes in the process of learning.
Disadvantages the using of scaffolding is more striking the teachers in teaching reading comprehension to students because this strategy requires extra patience, control is controlled to observe student activity. Use of this strategy will also take much less time to understand the entire contents of the text. This can lead to boredom and teachers can make students do not interested in reading the text if the teacher does not have any spirit in teaching the reading. This scaffolding requires training for teachers.
4.Schemata
Scemata are defined as a data structure for representing the generic concept store in memory. Alwi (2003) convinces that schemata can also be viewed as packets of knowledge and schemata theory is a theory of how these packets are represented and how that represent facilities use the knowledge in particular ways. Schemata can be loosely defined as patterns which represent the way experience and knowledge are organized in the mind. The schema for concept like 'break', for instance, will have associated with it at least the following variables , or slots , (i.e., sub-components of the schema) , the thing broken, the method or instrumen for the action of breaking, and the notion of causing something to change into a different state (Rumelhart and Ortony 1977). The concept of background knowledge, chemata, or patterns stored in the mind, has attracted the attention of research in narrative comprehension, Ll reading, and, more recently, L2 reading comprehension. Today the claim that background knowledge is an essential determiner of reading comprehension is relatively well developed and generally agreed upon in the literature on Ll reading comprehension. Most present-day models of reading comprehension emphasize the significance of background knowledge or schemata in reading comprehension.
According to Brown (2001) the hallmark of schema theory, with regards to reading, is that a text does not by itself carry meaning. The reader brings information, knowledge, emotion, and culture – that is schemata, to the printed word. More information is contributed by the reader than by the print on the page. This would all seem to point to the fact that our understanding of a text depends on how much related schema we, as readers, possess while reading. Consequently, readers natives and non-natives, failure or confusion to make sense of a text is caused by their lack of appropriate schemata that can easily fit with the content of the text. This lack of appropriate schemata can be either formal or content-based. Brown (2001) defines these two as follows: content schemata includes what we know about people, the world, culture, and the universe, while formal schemata consists of our knowledge about discourse structure. More recently, there have been attempts to specify and represent schemata more precisely. This new effort originated with scholars interested in dealing with discourse understanding from the perspective of artificial intelligence. Among other things, to this group is owed the notion that schemata are structures of knowledge that contain further schemata embedded within them, and also that schemata contain variables, or slots, and notions, as illustrated with the schema for 'break' in the introduction. To further clarify the point that schemata contain notions. In order for the computer to answer this question, it is absolutely essential that when it activates the write schema, it finds connected to this schema the notion 'be the author or. In other words, the computer will only be able to answer the question when it is explicitly fed in this information. The concept of schema components will be further elaborated upon in the section on schemata and inferencing below. Before closing this section, it is worth mentioning the dichotomy content versus formal schemata. Carrell (1983b) has made a clear differentiation between these two types of schemata. Formal schemata relate to the knowledge that readers have of the ways different genres are rhetorically organized. Content schemata, on the other hand, relate to the knowledge readers have of the semantic content of texts. Within the domain of content schemata there is a growing body of literature about culturally-determined or culturally-bound schemata.
Research on the theory of schema had great impact on understanding reading comprehension in first and second language. It made clear the case that understanding the role of schema in the reading process provides insights into why students may fail to comprehend text material. Most, if not all, research in this area seem to agree that when students are familiar with the topic of the text they are reading (i.e., possess content schema), aware of the discourse level and structural make-up of the genre of the text (i.e., possess formal schema), and skillful in the decoding features needed to recognize words and recognize how they fit together in a sentence (i.e., possess language schema), they are in a better position to comprehend their assigned reading.
In other word, bakground knowledge or schemata plays an important role in reading comprehension that classified into content schemata and formal schemata. Content schemata refers to reader’s background or world knowledge, provides readers with a foundation, a basis for comparison. While formal schemata refers to organizational forms and rhetorical structure of written text. It can include knowledge of different text types or genres, language structures, vocabulary, grammar, level of formality. It covers discourse level items, linguistic or language to recognize the words and how they fir together in a sentence (Huang: 2009). In this study the writer limit the linguistic in reading comprehension on genre excercise and vocabulary excercise.
5. Conceptual Framework
Reading is believed to be the most fundamental skill that students should acquire through the process of schooling. Students who experience difficulty in reading is assumed to face difficulty to entire academic curriculum content. Therefore in order to get information, students are expected to be able to read the text comprehendly.
In reading comprehension, the students should have ability to understand what has been read. It is not easy to develop student’s reading comprehension. There are many problems constrain students to have this reading comprehension such as students’ s uninterested in reading text, have not enough vocabulary, and so on. Therefore teacher is suggested to use strategy which is hoped can minimize the difficulties of students to comprehend the text. Of various strategies, scaffolding instruction is one of some strategies selected to use. In scaffolding, the students will become the active learners because scaffolding can help to develop students’ reading comprehension in English classes. provide the support, assistance, make concepts understandable and achievable for each student and the confidence students need to read and to comprehend effectively. Scaffolding gives students a context, motivation, or foundation from which to understand the new information that will be introduced during the coming lesson. Students will eventually be able to demonstrate their reading comprehension independently.
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