KRL 3033

KAEDAH PENYELIDIKAN DALAM PENDIDIKAN SEKOLAH RENDAH

TITLE

CHAPTER 2
LITERATURE REVIEW

PREPARED BY :
NAMA

NO.ID

KUMPULAN

AZMI BIN
AMERUDDIN

D20112055419

UPSI44(A142PJJ
)

LECTURER : DR FARAH NATCHIAR BINTI MOHD KHAJA HAMEED

SUBMITTING DATE : 05 April 2015

CHAPTER 2
LITERATURE REVIEW
1.0.

Introduction
Reading is one of four basic skill required in learning a language. Reading had been used

by humans for centuries. As being mentioned in the quotation above, reading is a complex
interaction between the text and the reader which is shaped by the readers prior knowledge,
experiences, attitude, and language community which is culturally and socially situated.
Reading is an essential and important skill as it can be used to communicate, to get
information and share ideas or thoughts. People already have a set up a mindset that reading
must be connected with books. This concept is not true as reading can take place in any medium,
even in this new era where technologies has become the main thing and widely used, but the skill
of reading still take place and plays important role. Without reading skill people wont be able to
know on how to use the technology as well.
Above all, the main purpose of reading is to comprehend the ideas in the materials read.
Without comprehension, reading would be empty and meaningless. In my practicum, I have
witnessed cases where students are capable of reading the words, but facing difficulties in
expressing their comprehension of the main ideas. Reading is actually not an easy thing. It
requires continuous practice, development, and refinement. Reading needs a lot of practice in
order to master it.
In the context of reading, the aspect of vocabulary cant be separated. Reading will
increase the level of vocabulary. It is because, during reading there must be some new words
observed that we dont know. Here comes the importance of using a dictionary. In order to
understand the reading text, reader must understand the meaning of words first. So, the
dictionary here is the medium to increase the level of vocabulary and help to improve the
understanding of reading. The importance of vocabulary explained in the quotation below,
Vocabulary is essential for communicating, reading, thinking, and learning. (Luckner &
Cooke, 2010)
Here, the vocabulary plays same role and as important as reading. Without good
vocabulary, people will face problems in daily routines like communicating. Lets take a look at
a situation here, when a person wants to say something but does not know what words to be

used. As mentioned above, one way to improve the level of vocabulary is through the usage of
dictionary. As the learner of English language, dictionary is an essential and importance tool of
learning. Here, the young learners need to know the importance of using dictionary starting from
young age. So, the students will achieve proficiency level standards of good ESL learners.

2.0.

Relevant Theories and Concepts.

2.1. The traditional bottom-up view

The bottom-up theory had been used widely in our Malaysians classroom. Bottom-up means,
the students know nothing and learn or get the knowledge throughout the reading. The way one
teaches reading always reflects the way one understands reading and the reading process. Some
teachers teach reading by introducing new vocabulary and new structures first and then going
over the text sentence by sentence. This is followed by some questions and answers and reading
aloud practice. This way of teaching reading reflects the belief that reading comprehension is
based on the understanding and mastery of all the new words, new phrases, and new structures as
well as a lot of reading aloud practice. Also, this reading follows a linear process from the
recognition of letters, to words, to phrases, to sentences, to paragraphs, and then to the meaning
of the whole text. This way of teaching reading is said to follow a bottom-up model. This
bottom-up approach is influenced by behaviorist psychology. In which, it claimed learning was
based upon;
The bottom-up model describes information flow as a series of stages that transforms the input
and passes it to the next stage without any feedback or possibility of later stages of the process
influencing earlier stages (Stanovich, 1980)
Due to it, our schools textbooks was designed according to this perspective include exercises
that focus on literal comprehension. Also, the questions that being given do not stressed on the
importance to the readers knowledge. This model of reading is always being claimed as
insufficient and defective as it relies on the formal features of the language, mainly words and
structure.
2.2. The Cognitive or Top-Down view

Goodman (1970) once said that reading was "a psycholinguistic guessing game". From that
quotation, what can be said is, the students prior knowledge plays a more important role than
learning new words and new structures in reading comprehension. Therefore, it is believed that
in teaching reading, the teacher should teach the background knowledge first so that student that
being equipped with such knowledge will be able to guess meaning from the printed page. Then,
the reading will be faster as the students can guess the reading text and have the basic idea
already.
According to Smith, 1994, these new cognitive and top-down processing approaches
revolutionized the conception of the way students learn to read. In this view, reading is not just
extracting meaning from a text but a process of connecting information in the text with the
knowledge the reader brings to the act of reading. In this sense, reading is a dialogue between the
reader and the text which involves an active cognitive process in which the readers background
knowledge plays a key role in the creation of meaning (Tierney and Pearson, 1994). Reading is
not a passive mechanical activity but purposeful and rational, dependent on the prior knowledge
and expectations of the reader. It is not merely a matter of decoding print to sound but also a
matter of making sense of written language (Smith, 1994: 2). In short, reading is a
psycholinguistic guessing game, a process in which readers sample the text, make hypotheses,
confirm or reject them, make new hypotheses, and so forth.

3.0.

Review of Previous Researchers

The task given requires me to do the research where I need to review the previous research

done by other that same or similar to my topic. After many research done, the similarities of
those previous research was found in the aspect of vocabulary and reading. Vocabulary is an
important item in reading. Limited vocabulary will create problem especially in comprehension
where the students need to understand what they read.

Research with hearing individuals indicates that a reader must know 90-95% of the words
in a passage to fully comprehend it (Carver, 1994; Chall, Jacobs, & Baldwin, 1990; Na &
Nation, 1985, Laufer,1989; Hu & Nation, 2000, Nagy & Scott, 2000).
Based on above quotation, taken from the previous research, it says that in order to
completely understand the reading text, he or she must know the meaning of words, mostly.
Hart and Risley (2003) have referred to a lack of vocabulary as the early catastrophe and
have provided evidence that lack of vocabulary and English language skills adversely affect a
childs English reading ability and overall academic success, sometimes irreversibly
Based on the quotation also, the researcher stressed that limited vocabulary will cause
problem in understanding reading text. In the aspect of vocabulary, the researcher also citated;
Coady (1997) states that the threshold for independent English reading is 5,000 word
families. Clearly, acquiring meanings for this many words is a formidable task.
Based on the quotation here, it shows that, vocabulary is a wide topic where there are too
many to cover. Based on the review done on previous research, most of the researchers agreed
that the fastest way to increase the students vocabulary is through the usage of dictionary. I took
the idea and altered it so it would be suitable with students or my participants.
Using dictionary brings a lot of benefits for students, teachers and also to school. In the
previous research, the researcher also stated the positive outcomes for it
Vocabulary is essential for communicating, reading, thinking, and learning,( Luckner &
Cooke, 2010)
From that, the advantages will come in many forms and cover up the important aspects.
First, it will train the students to be independent in class. Before this, the technique or approach
claimed as too teacher centred and not suitable to be used to the new level students. After trying
this method few times, the students did not wait for my explanations about words that they did
not understand. They just take their dictionary and find the meanings. Here, the teaching and
learning session is not teacher centred anymore. Apart from that, the other advantage of using

dictionary is, it can be used to highlight and to motivate the students in order to encourage them
to use the language and open up rooms for improvements.
Besides that, teacher can also have data and analysis on the students performance and make use
of it to overcome and do constructive actions to ensure the improvements of the students. Also, it
can help the teacher understand students learning progress and facilitate assessment for learning.
After each activity, explain and guide the students on how to improve in the next activity and do
not repeat the same errors again. Apart from that, the research can be a guideline for the teachers
to be more creative thinkers, and create a new perspective of English language in school. Also, it
will help the teacher to facilitate the teaching process and to solve the problem and difficulties in
teaching and learning session.
Besides that, this research can also benefit the school too if the students can increase their
proficiency in English which can lead to the achievement of English result. The result of the
research hopefully can motivate the school administrators and the teachers to develop the
English learning and teaching progress in school and allow the teachers to use any method
creatively as long as they can improve the students weaknesses in learning the language.

4.0.

Conclusion
In general, what can be conclude after reviewing the past research is, most of the

researcher agrees and highlighted that the teacher should choose the reading text carefully. Also,
when creating reading text, make sure the text are linear and no too hard. The text must also error
free and follow the principles of teaching reading skills. First of all, the selected texts and
attached tasks should motivate students. Next, the tasks should be designed to encourage
selective and intelligent reading for the main meaning rather than test the students' understanding
of trivial details. Besides that, the tasks should help develop students' reading skills rather than
test their reading comprehension. If teachers always ask students to read passages then answer
multiple choice questions, they are actually testing them not developing their reading skills.
Researches, opinions, and suggestions regarding the teaching of the reading exists and
being used widely in research. Some of it will bring positive impacts and works well and some

will not research will work along with theories or approaches. Select one theories or approaches
that suit to the research and stick to it. However, teachers can take advantage of using the most
useful methodologies associated with the different approaches. Regarding about the approaches
mentioned earlier, the top-down and bottom-up, what is important to bear in mind is that relying
too much on either top-down or bottom-up processing may cause problems for the students.
Therefore, to develop reading abilities, both approaches should be considered, as the metacognitive approach suggests.
Regarding about the research, the usage of dictionary is not limited to improve on the
aspect of vocabulary only. Students will also be able to learn about grammar like tenses and also
helps in improving and integrating other skills. However, this usage of dictionary to improve
students vocabulary and understanding in reading is a good place to begin with students who
cannot understand simple words to add on their vocabulary list and help them to understand
simple reading text.

REFERENCES

Internet:
1. http://dictionary-software-review.toptenreviews.com/some-simple-ways-to-improveyour-vocabulary.html
2. http://www.engvid.com/dictionary-vocabulary/
3. https://litemind.com/10-strategies-improve-vocabulary/
Journal:
1. https://www.press.umich.edu/pdf/9780472032860-ch1.pdf
Past Research:
1. The efficacy of dictionary use while reading for learning new words by Harley
Hamilton from Georgia Institute of Technology, 2012.
2. Teaching Reading Action Research Model by Kirsty Cochrane, 2009.