DEVELOPING READING COMPREHENSION BY READING ENGLISH NEWSPAPER

 

ABSTRACT

 Newspapers offer good chances of reading practice for ESL learners of different proficiency levels.Since newspaper articles are authentic in terms of language they use,experiences they report,and culture they reflect they may attract ESL learners‘ attention with their headlines,content areas,and pictures.On the other hand, they are difficult to handle for exactly the same reasons. To start with, we had beter take a close look into the nature of reading comprehension. Traditionally, in the study of second language comprehension, it has been the text (language to be comprehended) to blame for failures to comprehend not the reader or listener.Failures to comprehend a well-formed text passage have been attributed to some unknown language elements like words and gramatical rules.But today it is believed that it is not the text but the previously acquired knowledge that makes the comprehension

Possible.Immenual Kant claimed as long ago as 1781 that ‘new information,new concepts,new ideas can have meaning only when they can be related to something the individual already knows‘(Rumelhart:1980). One of the obvious reasons why a reader fails to understand a text is that the schema involved is culturally specific and does not exist for the reader.If the implicit culture content knowledge presupposed by a text interacts with the reader‘s own background knowledge of content, that text is easier to read and understand than rhetorically and syntactically equivalent text based on a less familiar and more distant culture (Anderson: 1979).

INTRODUCTION

A man only learns by twice, one by reading, and the other by association with smarter people (Will Rogers). It means reading is very important for people. Reading also the best way to learn a language one of them is Reading newspapers. Reading newspapers is very beneficial to all individuals especially for the young and old. The gains are both immediate and long term. From reading newspaper we can drive a much benefits. In reading newspaper there are trhee dimensional. First we can get to learn the expressions, than see the print and learn the spelling of the words. This is surely more effective than watching television or listening to the radio, which is only one dimensional.

Reading English Newspaper can improve students’ ability of vocabulary and the skill of reading comprehansion. We can find some feature articles of all sorts in the newspaper such as food, health, fashions, inventions, medicine, politic issues and many more. But it doesn’t mean that you need to look over the all content in the newspapers.

The background knowledge involved in reading comprehension is of 2 types:

a.       Formal schema

b.      Content schema

Formal schema is genre knowledge, background knowledge of the formal, textual organizational structures of various discourse types such as, differences in genre, structure of recepie, tales, arbituaries etc. Content schemais the background knowledge of content area of a text such as history of needle making, nuclear centers in Iran, Turkey‘s Cyprus policy etc. (Widdowson: 2007).

A succesful reader is usually equipped with both of these knowledge sturctures and thus can constitute and efficient interaction between linguistic knowledge and worl knowledge. One of the obvious reasons why a reader fails to understand a text is taht the schema involved is culturally specific and does not exist for the reader.If the implicit culture content knowledge presupposed by a text interacts with the reader‘s own background knowledge of content, that text is easier to read and understand than rhetorically and syntactically equivalent text based on a less familiar and more distant culture (Anderson: 1999).

To read English Newspapers, you can try to guess meanings between sentences, not to look up them in dictionary right away. This can increase your reading speed. If your guessing is wrong, do not give up. Keep reading, you will encounter the words several times to become familiar with them and know to use them in context. This is a good way to read English Newspapers. Because reading newspaper can improve our reading and writing skill as well as increasing vocabulary, it benefits us to study English. English newspaper contains many useful and common words. Moreover, one can acquire international news from reading English newspaper.

READING

Walker (1992: 37) defines reading as an active, problem solving process that involves predicting or guessing what the author says, based on expectations about story events. He claims that reading involves recalling an individual's life experience and trying to understand what is written. He also states that reading is comprehending and also developing of human learning; in other words, reading is more than just receiving meaning in a literal sense. Hill and Holden (1990: 91) support this idea stating that reading is the most useful skill for students to develop the understanding of a text, and it is very important since the learner gets Immediate feedback about the text.

Papalia (cited in Rivers, 1987: 70) agrees with Hill and Holden, and considers that reading is a problem solving behavior that involves the reader in the process of acquiring meaning. He also claims that the reader comprehends contextual information containing syntactic, semantic, and discourse constraints that affect interpretation.

Williams (1984: 2) also defines reading as a process where one looks at and understands what has been written in the text. He strongly emphasizes that the key word is "understands" and reading without understanding does not count as reading. He also claims that this definition of reading does not mean that a foreign learner needs to understand everything in a text, and from that he follows understanding is not an "all or nothing" process, and the reader does not necessarily need to look at everything in the text. According to him, the reader is not simply a passive object who is fed with words and sentences, but one whomis working on the text and trying to understand it without looking at every word.

According to Carroll (1986: 231), readers already have a series of values that might fit within activity in their memory. He also concludes that the properties of schemata specify the sequence of events in a story, and they are general knowledge structures, providing expectations about structure and content (see Carroll, 1986 for details).

Carroll (1986: 367) also cites that the importance of top-down and bottom-up processes has been investigated by other theorists. Some of the theorists emphasize the use of these two processes helps reading and makes it more meaningful, and they conclude that both forms are needed for fluent reading which plays an important role.

READING STYLES

Grellet (indicated in Ekmekci, 1994: 46) states that readers adopt different strategies depending on their purpose. According to the researchers, there are four styles of reading:

Scanning and skimming, intensive and extensive reading.

 Scanning and Skimming

Williams (1984: 100) defines scanning as going through a text very quickly to find a specific piece of information. He explains that the purpose of scanning is to find the answers to particular questions. Ekmek‡i (1994: 46) states that readers apply this strategy as they look

up a name in a directory or a date in an encyclopedia. She also emphasizes that readers want to find only specific information rather than reading the whole text in detail.

According to Williams (1984: 96), skimming means glancing rapidly through a text by "merely dipping into it and sampling it at various points" to comprehend its general content. He also emphasizes that the purpose of skimming is to briefly summarize what the text is about. He believes that one of the reasons for practising skimming is that it helps the learner

to acquire a study technique, to organize his thoughts and also to specify what information he can get from a book. However, he claims that skimming is not an appropriate technique for learners at beginning levels, as they both lack the language knowledge and confidence. He also suggests it should be practiced at the intermediate levels.

Intensive Reading and Extensive Reading

Intensive reading means reading every detail to certify everything in the text. Intensive reading involves a close study of texts and an examination of the features of foreign language at the various levels of word, sentence, paragraph and whole text. Hedge (1985: vi) explains that students are trained in the various skills and strategies to progress in reading through intensive reading activities in the classroom. She follows her idea stating that these activities are designed to help students in the detailed comprehension of shorter texts. Muni (cited in Hedge, 1985: Vii) also defines this kind of reading activity as "skill training". In other words, the learners' attention is drawn to nearly every grammatical structure, word or cultural fact contained in it. Williams (1984: 11) also follows this idea saying that the ultimate aim is to be able to use language appropriately.

Extensive reading, on the other hand, means reading some materials for pleasure outside the classroom. There are also some researchers like Krashen, Hill and Holden who give different term to extensive reading as "free voluntary reading". These researchers (Hill and Holden,1990: 91-93) claim that students who read for pleasure are better readers and have more advanced vocabulary since "free voluntary reading" is comprehensible input in a low anxiety situation, and students never feel pressured while reading outside the classroom. Ekmek‡i (1994: 46) also states that there are several ways to supply comprehensible input outside the classroom citing that reading long texts, without any stress develops an ability to gain meaning from unknown words with which students have.

Hedge (1985: 77) also emphasizes the importance of extensive reading, stating that this kind of individual and self-directed process makes students independent in learning, which is an important factor in success. According to her, if students are prepared for reading and given the opportunity to interact with a text, they may learn to read for general meaning without frequent stops to look words up in a dictionary. Hedge (1985: 77) also states that by reading at their own pace, they can develop the ability to deduce the meanings of unknown words and phrases from clues in the context. It may be concluded that students who spend some time reading for pleasure outside the classroom may increase both their comprehending the context and improving their vocabulary, and students can only learn by being actively involved in language.

On the other hand, according to Sanacore (1994: 604), the purpose of stimulating the students to read is to help them gain contextual insights through strategies as the following:

      Certain words, phrases, sentences, and paragraphs help to determine the meaning of some new words and concepts.

      Reading whole selections increases an awareness that thorough knowledge of all words is unimportant.

      Context can support learning of unfamiliar words independently, because it provides clues for comprehension.

      For comprehension to occur,vocabulary and prior knowledge must interact.

      The intonation a reader brings to a text can affect the importance and meaning of words.

Sanacore (1994: 604) claims that these five strategies support the role of context for expanding vocabulary. However, these strategies are the most effective when students are provided a wide variety of reading materials in a balanced selection according to their level.

Williams (1984 : 31) also explains the other goals of extensive reading; to increase general reading speed, to practice in skimming and scanning, and to develop an ability to extract relevant information from a text. According to him, increasing vocabulary through reading , and giving learners training in working out the meaning of words from the context are further goals. Accordingly, extensive readers learn to tolerate a degree of uncertainty in the meaning of new words.

Dubin and Olshtain (1977: 97) also claim that learners who read on their own for pleasure in an effective way develop good reading habits and learn much vocabulary through extensive reading. They also summarize the objectives of extensive reading as follows:

      Students develop an ability to gain pleasure and also satisfaction from reading on their own in the language they are learning.

       They are exposed to the language in a more natural and less structured way. In other words, they get different unpressured feeling on the structure of the language since they read for pleasure, and not for a grade or a test.

      Extensive reading has also effect on other language skills such as writing and speaking.

      Extensive reading, or reading for pleasure, will help the students comprehend more and also continue to use the language after the instruction.

According to Dubin and Olshtain (1977: 98), all these objectives are very important to fulfil the objective of encouraging reading for pleasure. Extensive reading can only take place if the material is easy and interesting or arouses interest for students. They also claim that students need considerable encouragement from the teachers at the first stage of extensive extracurricular reading, especially avoiding turning them into "school" activities since the initial stages are very important to develop confidence in language.

According to Dubin and Olshtain (1977: 145), teachers should spend more time to embolden students individually in reading. If learners can be made aware of reading individually in the library or self-access centers where they can find any kind of materials to cope with their weaknesses, more development can be achieved in language learning. They strongly states that individualized learning emphasizes the needs to adopt realistic expectations towards FL and preferences of individual learners. In other words, students are given some responsibility for their own learning.

Tierney, Readence and Disher (1985: 263) also emphasize that individualized reading is related to interest and selection individually, and  it is appropriate for use at all levels. They claim that individualized reading centers on the student, his individual development and his specific needs, such as vocabulary improvement in a quiet and nonpressured situation. It also helps learners' own growth in reading and vocabulary if the materials are also appropriate for them.

READING COMPREHANSION

The Meaning of Reading Comprehesion

a)      Clara Wong Kee (1997: 9) states that reading comprehension is a process of making sense of a written text. However, it is not a passive one-way decoding process. Instead, it is an active two-way process in which the reader and the text interact ie. the reader tests clues from the text against his knowledge to arrive at an understanding of the text acceptable to the reader.

b)      Eksay in Amir (2004: 6) states, “Reading comprehension in general is viewed in this research as the resulting from the four way interaction between readers, text, task, structured activity. The success of this interaction depends of the availability of quality of content and strategist schemata to new problem solving situations.

c)      Simanjuntak (1998: 4) states that reading comprehension is not just reading with aloud voice but reading is established to understand the meaning of words, sentences, and paragraph as well as sense relationship among the ideas. Whenever a student just read loudly but cannot understand the content of the text, it means that he fails in comprehending the passage.

Reading comprehension is the act of understanding what you are reading. While the definition can be simply stated the act is not simple to teach, learn or practice. Reading comprehension is an intentional, active, interactive process that occurs before, during and after a person reads a particular piece of writing.

There are two elements that make up the process of reading comprehension: vocabulary knowledge and text comprehension. In order to understand a text the reader must be able to comprehend the vocabulary used in the piece of writing. If the individual words don’t make the sense then the overall story will not either. We can draw on their prior knowledge of vocabulary, but they also need to continually be taught new words. The best vocabulary instruction occurs at the point of need.

 In addition to being able to understand each distinct word in a text, we also has to be able to put them to gether to develop an  overall conception of  what it is trying to say. This is text comprehension. Text comprehension is much more complex and varied that vocabulary knowledge. Readers use many different text comprehension strategies to develop reading comprehension. These include monitoring for understanding, answering and generating questions, summarizing and being aware of and using a text’s structure to aid comprehension.

Why is reading comprehension so important?

Without comprehension, reading is nothing more than tracking symbols on a page with your eyes and sounding them out. Imagine being handed a story written in Egyptian hieroglyphics with no understanding of their meaning. You may appreciate the words aesthetically and even be able to draw some small bits of meaning from the page, but you are not truly reading the story. The words on the page have no meaning. They are simply symbols. People read for many reasons but understanding is always a part of their purpose. Reading comprehension is important because without it reading doesn’t provide the reader with any information.

Beyond this, reading comprehension is essential to life. Much has been written about the importance of functional literacy. In order to survive and thrive in today’s world individuals must be able to comprehend basic texts such as bills, housing agreements (leases, purchase contracts), directions on packaging and transportation documents (bus and train schedules, maps, travel directions). Reading comprehension is a critical component of functional literacy. Think of the potentially dire effects of not being able to comprehend dosage directions on a bottle of medicine or warnings on a container of dangerous chemicals. With the ability to comprehend what they read, people are able not only to live safely and productively, but also to continue to develop socially, emotionally and intellectually

NEWSPAPER

The Meaning of Newspaper

A newspaper is a publication that is issued daily or weekly and includes local and international news stories, advertisements, announcements, opinions, cartoons, sports news and television listings. It is an important method of letting the public know everything that is happening in their local area and around the world. Even with the advancements in computer technology, newspapers continue to be an important aspect of everyday life. It is important to know the sections of the newspaper and what information each one contains. The front page has the most important stories of the day. Each story has its own "headline" and a "by-line" giving the name of the reporter who wrote the story.

Two Kinds of Newspapers:

1.       The printed newspaper is defined as “a publication containing news, information and advertising, usually printed on lower-cost paper newsprint. It may be general or special interest, most often published daily or weekly”. In fact, newspapers include articles about different fields such as political events, crime, culture, sports, health. They also have comic strips, funny stories, or crosswords for entertainment.

2.       The online newspaper also known as a web newspaper is “a newspaper that exists on the World Wide Web or Internet”. Online newspapers arise from printed ones. Modern printed newspapers throughout the world are using the Internet to issue articles online. Publishing in electronic form helps newspapers compete effectively with the other media in presenting breaking news in a timely way and attract more readers.

There is not a big difference between these two forms of newspapers. Therefore, whatever types of newspapers we read, the benefits we get are the same. Now we go and study these benefits.

Reasons to read English newspapers

1.      People read newspapers which are easy or difficult depending on how their ability can handle.

2.      The language in the newspaper helps them improve vocabulary, reading and writing skills.

3.      They know the proper ways of reading English newspaper.

4.      Newspapers as a source of information

We should not be “frogs in the well”, but we should read newspapers daily, reading newspapers keep us well-informed with a variety of fields. According to Donal DL. Ferguson and Jim Patten (1993), the mass media including newspapers reports accurate information of local, national and world events. Therefore, reading newspapers, in the first place, helps us know what is happening in our country as well as other countries in the world. Predictions of its intensity and direction of movement in a long article.

In other potition reading advertising  pages helps us find a part-time job or search for a foreign language course. We also learn about requirements in recruiting employees so that we will be able to apply for a suitable job after graduating. For students, newspapers are not only a source of information but also useful materials.

5.      Newspapers as an educational tool.

In the field of education, the newspaper is considered to be a valuable resource and is used to compliment textbooks. Nnewspapers’ can be used as supplementary resources in such subjects as geography, reading, language, art, math, science and feature articles give students knowledge about interesting people and places around them. Understanding the importance of newspapers in education, Doris Barber, a reading teacher says: “I use the paper weekly to promote reading fluency and comprehension. It also helped students to know current events and what was going on in the world. We also wrote summaries of newspaper stories focusing on who, what, when, where, why and how”. Thus, to study subjects in school well, we should read newspapers regularly. It is also advisable to read newspapers in foreign language.

Reading newspapers in foreign language helps we improve our skills of that language. This newspaper reading not only strengthens my vocabulary but also improves my English” (Hoang Hoa, 2002, p130). Secondly, it improves our skill of reading. While reading, we can apply sub-skills of reading that we have been taught in school. Thus, our ability of comprehension will be better. “Studies have shown that students who use newspapers score higher on reading comprehension test and develop stronger critical thinking skills” (Jim Cornish, 2004).

Thirdly, we learn a lot about patterns of writing in articles which are concise and effective (Matthewg, 2004). Finally, of course, when we have learnt more new words and our skills of reading and writing have been improved, we will be able to listen and speak better. In addition to information and knowledge, newspapers provide us with entertainment.

6.      Newspapers as a source of entertainment.

Reading for entertainment is also called reading for pleasure. This kind of reading neither stimulates our thought nor provides us with knowledge. Its main purpose is to relieve our tension and loneliness. When we have nothing to do, it is also a way of “killing” time (Hoang Hoa, 2004). Newspapers are good for entertainment because they contain comic strips, funny stories as well as crosswords which are  useful for us in both relaxing and training our ability of deducing. Reading articles of other fields is a pastime, too.

The Benefit Reading Newspaper

Many people have habits of reading daily newspapers that their days seem incomplete without taking hold of early morning newspapers. Here are some of the benefits that you can get by reading daily newspapers:

• Newspapers carry the news of the world. By reading it, you will become updated with current events not only in your nation but news about other countries as well.
• Newspapers provide information and general knowledge. Reading it daily will widen the scope of your knowledge which is an integral part of education and very useful especially for student. Newspapers can provide interesting things and ideas which can assist students in their learning process at school. Not only are the news itself that are beneficial for students, but it also develop their language skills and increases their word vocabulary.
• Newspapers provide news about a country’s economic situation, sports, games, entertainment, trade and commerce. People are made aware of the existing condition of politics, culture and economy by reading the news. Those who hunger for news will surely find satisfaction by reading the newspapers as it carries information of various topics.
• Reading newspaper makes a good habit and it is already part of the modern life. This habit will widen your outlook and will enrich your knowledge. It will likewise improve your English as reading English news is a good practice.
• Reading newspaper makes you well informed. It enables you to take part in every discussion pertaining to the world’s current events. By taking an active participation in group discussions, it will make you feel that you belong in an enlightened society. The only thing that can stop you from joining talks and discussion is if you are ignorant of what is happening around you.
• Reading newspapers will improve your knowledge in general and it will be easy for you to relate to other people who often talks about current events and politics. Of course, there are televisions and radios that also bring current news but it do not provide detailed information as newspaper does.
• Through newspapers, you will have a clear idea and understanding of what is happening in your country and the whole world. It also carries contents about policies and plans of government and corporations. It has also plenty of advertisements that will keep you updated about what is going on in the world of business and industry.

The Benefit Reading Newspaper for Reading Comprehansion.

Reading comprehansion not just only read the story or article and live it after that. The real reading comprehansion is to understan the story or article that we read and we will be able to retell what have we read. Every newspaper story has to answer the following questions:  5W and 1HH

·         Who? - who is the story about?

·         What? - what is the story about?

·         Where? - where does the story take place?

·         When? - When does the story take place?

·         Why? - Why is this happening? (This is not always possible to answer)

·         How? - how this story happened

How to Read English Newspaper

Those include: first, they can search for an English newspaper proper for them. What’s more, they may read the news which is interesting to them. Third, they can read headlines and the first and last paragraphs which provide them information about the world. Finally, choose several articles they’re interested in and read them. Don’t feel frustrated if the words are not familiar to you since the new words will appear several times. Finally, keep reading English news as your daily habit..

Reading English Newspaper can help students to improve their reading ability, learn more vocabulary and let them know what has happened in the world. They can read newspaper via the methods below.

1.      You can choose to read newspapers on Sunday because that day is your leisure time.

2.      Choose the interesting parts of the newspaper you really want to read.

3.      Read the first paragraph, and then stop unless you think it’s interesting. If so, go ahead.

4.      Turn to the front page. Read the headlines to know what has happened, because the most important things are put on the front page.

5.      Choose the first five articles that attract you. Then read the first two to three of them.

6.      If you want to read more, you can turn to other columns, such as sport. Then choose the top five articles, read their title and the first paragraph. We can use these methods to reduce the time we read the newspapers meanwhile keep us  informed of important events

7.      Keep reading the newspaper regularly. Don’t give up.

8.      Guess the meaning of the words that you don’t understand.

Why to Use English Newspapers in an ESL Classroom?

The use of Newspapers in the classroom on regular basis will inculcate habit of intensive and extensive reading. Newspapers are very popular among the learners of English Language as they have a special column/feature to sharpen the

English Language Skills of the readers. English newspapers are also less expensive and full of varied information and details. Anybody can afford them easily. In urban area that too in metro and semimetro cities, readers prefer to read English newspapers.

The students those who are living in such places, fond of reading English newspapers in comparison to the students of country side. The circulation of English newspapers in country side is not regular due various reasons. It is also seen that newspapers arrive one or two day late after its publication. But still, for the sake of sharing the information and improving English Language, it can be used as a learning resource. Following are the main advantages of using English newspapers in an ESL classroom:

1.      Provide motivation for reading and discussion in English

2.      Develop affection and interest towards the use of English Language. .

3.      Make the process of learning interesting and innovative.

4.      Flexible and adaptable to all curriculum areas and grade levels.

5.      Promote good reading habits that will help in a better understanding.

6.      Offer a wide variety of knowledge and information -- news, sports, weather, editorials, and comics.

7.      A very cost-effective way to impart learning.

8.      Contain practical vocabulary and the best models of clear, concise writing.

9.      Develop writing, speaking and listening skills of the students.

10.  Explore and unfold the world of knowledge and information.

11.  Lessons take time to prepare. Once a teacher finds an interesting material, he/she may use it over and over again.

12.  Helpful in learning grammatical usages, carefully crafted sentence structures and idioms and phrases besides new words.

The English Newspapers can be used for ESL learners of all levels. For beginning students, the largeprint headlines, recognizable symbols and numbers, and many color and black-and-white photographs can communicate information that students understand. At an intermediat level, the newspaper offers exposure to print, to graphic devices, and to punctuation. Advanced students can read English newspapers much as a native speaker would, skimming some articles, reading others completely, and ignoring those parts of the newspaper of small interest to them.

The English newspapers report the current international events, new important technological breakthroughs, the changing world and society. It’s clear that the newspapers follow the time closely and the contents are new and attractive. In this way, they can always keep students motivated and up-to-date. The English newspapers present English learners a wide variety of writing written in authentic language. Different kinds of texts such as narratives, stories, letters, reports, and advertisements, etc, can serve as examples of writing and be made use of to hone students’ writing ability. Further, the English newspapers provide various materials for students to broaden their knowledge.

Through reading one can come across with foreign cultures, foreigners’ value of life, ways of thinking, belief, behaviors and life trend better. Language is a powerful means of communication. Through reading of English newspapers, students discover life as it happens. With the development of the language ability, students’ consciousness of social accountability, cultural backdrop and critical thinking are also developed to a great extent.

How to Use Newsapaper in Classroom.

1.      Teachers can use headlines and articles in several different ways:

a.        matching the articles and headlines

b.      Finding the synonyms of some headline words in the article.

c.       Making appropriate headlines for articles.

d.      Putting sentences into headline forms.

e.       Finding out different meanings in the ambiguous headlines, etc.

2.       Explain two different meanings of the following ambiguous headlines.

3.      Find the word(s) in the article which have the same meaning as the underlined word in the headline

TEACHING READING COMPREHENSION WITH THE NEWSPAPER

Understanding what is read IS reading comprehension; it is the reason for reading! Adults who develop a newspaper reading habit are purposeful and active readers. Teachers who use newspapers frequently are helping their students "read on purpose." By letting children find pictures, maps, comics, graphs, articles and ads, children learn how to select from an array of interesting material.

Metacognition

To understand the world around them, it is helpful for children to know how they think and learn. Children become active, purposeful readers when they become "metacognitive," being truly aware of their learning.

 A child must learn to:

• explain why they are reading—the purpose

• how they can use the information read—the application

• how everyone has "background knowledge" to help

For example, the teacher might say, "Turn in today’s newspaper to the picture on the front page. Can you tell what the article will be about from the picture? What do you already know about this?" Listen to student responses, and ask, “And what else?”

"Now let’s find out how each of us learns to read best. If we read something really interesting from the newspaper, we can learn how we learn!" The teacher gives the students time to be actively involved in selecting what they will read. "What did you select for today?"

"The article you chose is about a sport's hero. Let's read it together."

·         The teacher might read the article aloud, asking students to follow along.

·         The teacher might ask, "Tell me, what do you understand about this article?

What more do you need to know? How can you find out?”

·         The teacher can suggest, "Let's read the article again.

Now, let's write the main idea of the article in your newspaper journals."

·         Elicit responses from students. "What are some more facts to support the main idea?"

·          "What did we just do together that helped you understand the article better?" Elicit responses. “Here are some things to do to understand how you learn best—after reading, ask yourself these questions:”

·          What is this article about?

·         What do I understand about this article?

·         What more can I learn?

·         What’s the best way for me to learn more?

·         Should I go back and re-read?

·         Should I underline as I write?

·         Do I need to write down some notes?

·         Can I remember better if I underline key words and phrases?

The teacher might also ask the children if they have some of their own "clues to learning" (metacognitive strategies). The teacher might ask:

·         "What do you find most interesting about reading a newspaper?"

·         "What is your favorite section? Why?”

·         "What would you like to learn more about?"

·         "What helps you understand new words?”

·         "Do newspaper pictures help? Headlines? Why or Why not?”

Text Feature Knowledge

Because a newspaper has a wide variety of texts, pictures, symbols and graphics, it provides many opportunities for teaching reading comprehension strategies.

To begin:

1.      Teach the text features of the newspaper. A classroom bulletin board illustrating each of these features will help youngsters learn how a newspaper is formatted, and what to look for on each page, and in each section.

·   Front Page Features: Headline, Dateline, Byline, Cutline, etc.

·   Section Divisions

·   Headline Above the Fold

·        Sub-Headlines

·        Jump Lines

·        News Photos

·        Index

·        Editorial Page, Editorial Cartoon

·         Letters to the Editor

·         OpEd- Opinion/Editorial Pages

·         Special Feature Pages

·         Shopping Ads and Classified Ads

·         Comics

2.      Teach children to manage sections and pages of the newspaper.

·         Separate newspaper into section bundles.

·         Staple the corner of each for easy use.

·         Have child write his/her name in the corner.

3.      Show children how to cut news clippings, and how to cut and paste them into their newspaper notebooks, adding drawings and special notes. (See p. 26) The newspaper journal may be kept in a special place and used especially on days when the newspapers are delivered to the classroom.

How to Understand Story Structures

Help students improve reading comprehension by understanding that there are different story structures within a newspaper. This includes identifying different types of newspaper writing, sometimes called "stories" by journalists.

What’s Hard News?

Have children relate with just the facts an incident that happened at their house last evening. The teacher may decide to use the sample in the following paragraph. It could be as simple as this example:

"My Mom called us in for dinner. We did not hear her at first. She had to use a special whistle. As soon as we heard it, we ran to the house. But it was too late. Dinner had burned. My Mom and Dad were not happy about that. We had to eat peanut butter and jelly sandwiches instead. Then we went to bed without watching TV."

Explain that this type of reporting of an incident is hard news. This simple incident could answer: Who? What? Where? When? Why? and How?

·         Go to the newspaper and select a front-page story that will be interesting for the children. Read the story aloud with the children, asking them to mark the facts, and only the facts with highlighter pens. Go through the Who? What? When? Where? Why? and How? of the newspaper article.

·         Explain that this is called hard news because it reports the facts without an opinion.

What’s Opinion?

Go back to the original hard news story the children told that had facts and only the facts. Now ask the children to re-tell the story, this time telling how they felt about the incident. It could be like this:

"My Mom called us in for dinner, at the most important part of our game. We did not hear her at first because she did not call loudly enough. Her special whistle is too piercing, and it hurt our ears. Though we wanted to continue our play, we ran to the house. It was really Mom’s fault the dinner had burned. It wasn’t fair that we had to go to bed without watching TV."

Ask the children to tell which words in this telling are opinion words. Explain that opinion is often reported as fact, but it is really a judgment, not really a fact.

·         Go to the newspaper editorial page and select an article or letter that will be interesting for the children. Read the article aloud with the children, asking them to mark the opinion words.

·         Explain that this is called "editorial or opinion" because it adds a judgment or personal bias to some of the facts.

What’s Analysis?

For students who are ready for this, explain that news analysis is often given to help readers make a judgment. News analysis is facts, opinions and judgments all together.

Here’s a simple analysis of the same story:

"The children’s mother called them in for dinner at 6 p.m. Because she knew they were involved in a game, the mother knew they might not have "heard" her call. The children had done this several times in the past two weeks. She used a special whistle only when she felt certain they were out of hearing range, or to alert them. She gave them over 20 minutes, then heard them running to the house. Both parents thought the children needed to learn a lesson. No one in the household was happy that evening."

·         Now find an analysis of a current local situation, and ask the children to determine how they know it is an analysis. Select a story that is interesting to the children. OR, for the more advanced, ask the children to write an analysis of an interesting article.

·         Repeat this activity having children write their own hard news, opinion and analysis paragraphs in their newspaper notebooks.

How to Sequence Events

·         Comic pages provide a great way to teach sequence of events. By laminating and cutting out comics, students can learn sequencing by putting them back in the correct order. They can also create a new story by changing the order.

·         Read a newspaper article of interest for the sequence of events. Have children order the sequence by writing 1, 2, 3, etc. in red pen showing what happened first, second, next, etc.

·         Repeat this with other newspaper articles.

·         For more advanced students, ask them to keep track of a continuing news story of prominence.

The student might keep a "sequence of events" related to world news in their newspaper notebooks.

How to Summarize

·         Teachers can help students improve comprehension by teaching them to summarize newspaper articles and features. This helps them to determine what is important or unimportant in a passage. Summarizing also helps them to:

·         Identify or generate main ideas.

·         Connect the main or central ideas.

·         Eliminate unnecessary information.

·         Remember what they read.

How to Use Graphic Organizers

Good teachers understand how important it is for students to have graphic organizers to help them read, write, think and learn. A newspaper uses many graphic organizers to guide reading as well. The teacher can point out how these special "thinking frames" help reading. Here are some graphic organizers in a newspaper any day of the week:

1.      Charts and Maps.

Ask students to check the chart on the weather page to see what the high and low temperatures are for their city, other cities in their state, and other cities and states in their country.

·         Repeat this activity frequently, noticing more details on the weather chart, and change the questions from lesson to lesson to give the children experience in learning how to read charts.

·         Have students select a different city and create a weather chart for that city over several newspaper days.

·         Ask students to notice directions, North, South, East, and West on the weather map. Find their home city and determine the direction one must travel to reach West Java, Pacitan, Toba and Tanggerang.

·         Ask students to write a paragraph describing what they would take in a suitcase to visit a northern city, such as Surabaya.

·         Have students create a map of their school, their neighborhood and their town.

2.      Tables.

Use the television programming pages to teach how to read a table. Ask the children to find their favorite evening television program. Show them to read vertically and horizontally to find the station letters, the time and channel numbers.

·         Repeat this activity until the children understand how to read the television listings.

·         Have children select their top 10 favorite TV shows and create their own television listing tables using information regarding times and stations from the newspaper.

3.      Graphs.

Find a bar graph representing a newspaper article and demonstrate how the graph helps understand what the text is about. Read the accompanying article, and re-visit the graph.

·         Ask children to find articles about their favorite football teams in the sports pages. Have the children created their own graphs to track the wins/losses, yardage, downs, etc.

·         Have the children update their Football Graphs each week.

4.      Diagrams.

Continue to use the sports pages to help children learn how diagrams help learning.

·         Create a football field diagram on a large chart paper or chalkboard.

·         Read an article about a recent football game with the children, and as a group, create a diagram on the chart.

·         Ask students to create football field diagrams in their newspaper notebooks.

Have students notice diagram patterns and plays from week to week.

·         Have children write summary sentences that explain the diagrams.

·         Repeat similar activities with basketball, baseball, soccer, tennis, etc. depending upon the interest of the children and the sports covered in the newspaper.

CONCLUTION

In conclution reading English Newspaper can improve students’ ability of vocabulary and the skill of reading comprehansion. First, you can find the topics you interest. Then, just read these topics you scan. You also don’t finish every paragraph of them. If the content is really interesting for you, read it thoroughly. So you are able to absorb many kinds of new information and have good storage of vocabulary. You can understand what it is talking about and you don’t want to waste your time, right? Third, read more about the article you like by reading the information containing “when”, “where”, “what”, “who”, and “how”. That will help you read quickly. The last one, don’t be afraid of new words. You can understand what it means in the context.

REFERENCES

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