Reading Material Based Gender and Cultural Familiarity and Its Implementation

Elis Susanti

doi:10.32528/ellite.v3i1.1774

Abstract

The schemata theory in reading explains that in the process of comprehending a reading material, a pre-exsistent knowledge of the readers will be active when they read a piece of reading material in which it presents a familiar vocabulary, patterns, or contexts in which they fit into the readers’ pre-exsistent knowledge. As a result, readers can recognize what they read because it fits into patterns what they already known. This research was categorized as a type of research and development in which it developed a reading material on the basis of the readers’ interest and content familiarity which was constructed under the concept of schemata theory in reading. The research stages consisted of conducting praresearch, developing a prototype, validating the prototype, and applying the design to the research sample. The researchers took a class of X social science class in SMAN 1 Abung Semuli consisting of 32 students as the research sample to apply the prototype of this research development product. The data analysis shows that the use of reading material based gender and cultural familiarity gives significant influence on the students’ reading comprehension in which to the conclusion that the prototype of this research product is effective to be used as a reading material in a reading class.

Highlights

Comprehension is the main objective of a reading activity in which the process involves many reading aspects
The Result of Pra-research Referring to the analysis of the applied reading material at school, it was found that 4 out of the 8 units still presented an unbalanced gender based material
In a balanced gender based material, it is suggested to avoid the use of only one name, or certain pronoun which refers to only a certain prototype either male or female

Summary

Introduction

Comprehension is the main objective of a reading activity in which the process involves many reading aspects. They state that “comprehending means thinking while reading” In this case, it can be seen that in the process of comprehending a reading material, there will always a process in which the reader recalls their pre-exsistent knowledge or prior knowledge to help them understand what is being read. According to Rumelhart in Landry (2002) schemata is the “building blocks of cognition” that are used in the process of understanding sensory data, in repossessing information from memory, in organizing aims and sub-goals, in allocating resources, and in leading the flow of the processing system In this case, pre-exsistent knowlede or schemata will help the readers to recognize what they read easier because it is a familiar pattern for them. It is essential that the reading material should consider the male and female students’ interest as well as present a culturally familiar text which can help the students comprehend the reading material easier

Methods

Results

Conclusion