BOOK REVIEW ABOUT READING

BOOK REVIEW

During 5^th semester in Extensive Reading class, I got some exercises to read a lot of texts such as articles, journals, and e-book concern of Reading. Even in a short time, I have got much gain knowledge which has benefit to my study in the future. Commonly, the material that I got is talk about teaching and learning reading comprehension. Recently I read some e-books that are from my own group and friends who have the same topic as me. In my e-book’s group discussed about Reading and Learning Difficulties: Approaches to teaching and assessment by Peter Westwood. It was first published in 2001 by The Australian Council for Educational Research Ltd. He combined the best features of whole language approach with the necessary explicit teaching of component skills and strategies. His book includes of nine chapters, but my group only discussed about the chapther six six chapters. The first chapter tells about learning to read. Chapter 2 informs the readers to know the reading process. To get the reading comprehend, first of all children have to solve the difficulties of learning which is explained in chapter 3. Next, in chapter 4 is talking about general teaching approaches. Furthermore, in chapter 5, this book focus on the specific teaching methods and strategies this can develop children fluency. When you come to the last chapter that we discussed in chapter 6, you will get the important information about teaching the basics, which are consist of phonemic awareness, phonic skills and sight vocabulary. However, I just pick one chapter to review which is in chapter 1 about learning to read.

Next e-book is Teaching Reading Comprehension to Students with Learning Difficulties by Janette K. Klingner, Sharon Vaughn, and Alison Boardman.  Janette K. Klingner, PhD, is an associate professor at the University of Colorado at Boulder. To date, she has authored or coauthored 49 journal articles, 9 books (some edited), and 14 book chapters. Dr. Klingner’s research interests include reading comprehension strategy instruction for diverse populations, overrepresentation of culturally and linguistically diverse students in special education, and special education teacher quality. She is past Coeditor of the Review of Educational Research and an Associate Editor of the Journal of Learning Disabilities. Sharon Vaughn PhD, holds the H. E. Hartfelder/Southland Corp. Regents Chair in Human Development at the University of Texas at Austin and has served as the Editor in Chief of the Journal of Learning Disabilities and the Coeditor of Learning Disabilities Research and Practice. She has received the American Educational Research Association’s Special Education Special Interest Group Distinguished Researcher Award and has written numerous books and research articles that address the reading and social outcomes of students with learning difficulties. Alison Boardman, PhD, is an adjunct professor at the University of Colorado at Boulder, where she teaches undergraduate- and graduate-level courses in special education and educational psychology. Her research interests include struggling readers, providing effective professional development, and collaboration among general education and special education teachers, and she has published research articles on these topics in leading journals. Dr. Boardman also has many years of experience as a special education teacher in elementary and middle schools. This book is series editors’ note by Karen R. Harris and Steve Graham. It tells about providing teachers and other practitioners with validated instructional techniques. In chapter 4 within this book, I take additional sources for developing my ideas about text structure and reading comprehension. Other book is the first edition of 8th Grade Reading Comprehension Success by Elizabeth Chesla. In this book, I focus on chapter 4 (p. 113) that tells about reading between the lines. The last one is my own e-book, the title is Effective Teaching and Learning Reading written by Greg Brooks, Maxine Burton, Pam Cole and Marcin Szczerbi´nski. Published by the National Research and Development Centre. Factors associated with improvement in reading attainment are sub topic that I think it appropriates adding into this review, because the study of effective practice in the teaching of reading to adult learners reported here was the largest such study to date in Britain, involving 454 learners in 59 classes across England and over 470 hours of observation.

At the first time as children have learned reading before their entering school. After I read book Reading and Learning Difficulties : Approaches to teaching and assessment by Peter Westwood on chapter 1 (page 10), I know that children have already learned reading which is got the influence in environment such as in family’s area through emergent literacy. Goldstone (2002) in Teaching Reading Comprehension to Students with Learning Difficulties’ book noted that students need concrete, specific information about the special features and organization of picture books to enhance their appreciation and comprehension. Even though children do not understand the words that are written on the book, children learn reading unconsciously through imitation. However, to accomplish children comprehension of reading, they need reading awareness of stories, books, and print to independence reading at school. Students learn to recognize commonly occurring signs, symbols and words encountered daily. Emergent literacy gives advantages to students for building their sight vocabulary, phonic skill, and develops their comprehension in reading. According to me, this book shows that environment is important for children to their first learning, because it can influence their learning at school. Now I understand the struggle that I face of in learning especially in reading, because my environment did not support me to learn when I was kid. Reading this book also can build vocabulary.  

One of the most important things that is needed in learning to read is to know the text structure for getting reading comprehension. In Teaching Reading Comprehension to Students with Learning Difficulties’ book  by Janette K. Klingner, Sharon Vaughn, and Alison Boardman, I would like to take ideas about Text Structure and Reading Comprehension from chapter 4 (p. 90), which is divided text structure into two items : narrative and expository text structure. This book distinguishes narrative text structure learning disabilities which apply different comprehension strategies designed to facilitate students understanding of text through stories. Otherwise, in expository structure, “Poor readers, including students with Learning Difficulties, find expository text structure particularly difficult” (Williams et al., 2004, p. 131). Therefore, as teachers have to explicit instruction, which can help them recognize these various structures and use that recognition to aid their comprehension. The use of various text strategies does not influence the improvement of reading comprehension because each people have different approaches to get the point. This book is useful for teachers who teach students who struggle with understanding and learning from text. I recommend this book to read for educational students, because the authors have good qualification on their subject and their give explicit explanation to teach English along with the examples. I think senior high school students also can understand what this book talks about.

After you know the structure of text and learning disabilities, students is demanded to know the main ideas or what the text talk about in learning to read. Generally, the main idea is easy to find in the text, but sometimes the writer does not mention the main idea directly in the text. Therefore, you need to know how to read between the line which is in chapter 4 (p. 113) on Grade Reading Comprehension Success’s book by Elizabeth Chesla. First, find an implied main idea through language and style that writer use. Next, assuming causes and predicting effects. Use clues in the text to uncover these implied ideas and look carefully at what people say and do and pay particular attention to details, word choice, and tone. Then, emotional versus logical appeals through recognize a good argument. The last one is uncovering meaning in literature through see the theme of poems, stories, and plays. This book is appropriate for junior and senior high school students because the choice of words facilitate students to comprehend the text. They can practice through exercises in the book for getting reading comprehension. I suggest teachers use this book as their textbook in Junior or Senior High School.

In learning to read, there are factors that influence students in reading comprehension. Therefore, on book Effective Teaching and Learning Reading in 1^st chapter (p. 8), there are six factors associate with improvement in reading attainment ; genre, occupational status, formal qualification, attendance, enjoyment of literacy, and self-study. This book is kind of research that can be understood by adult and students at college. This research suggests that measuring progress in reading is more complex than any tests yet devised by researchers or awarding bodies. Teachers will explore and develop the examples of good and promising practice documented in this book.

In conclusion, this book review is focused on learning to read which is developed with some ideas consist of understand the structure, reading between the line, and factors related to reading comprehension. I hope this book review can be a useful guide and you can catch the ideas through paragraphs’.