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CHAPTER 2
THEORETICAL BACKGROUND
Some theories regarding reading ability and its relation with monolingualism and
multilingualism are used to support the research held by the writer in this paper. In
analyzing the result derived from observation, following theories are described in this
chapter. From these theories, the findings are expected to be acceptable academically.
Those theories are as follow:
2.1 Monolingualism
Monolingualism is derived from the word monoglottism, mono means alone or
solitary, and glotta means tongue or language. According to Webster Dictionary (1964)
monolingual is having or using only one language. Moreover, monolingual is variously
defined, Richard & Schmidt (2002) define monolingual as “a person who has an active
knowledge of only one language, though perhaps a passive knowledge of others” and
Crystal (1987) says that monolingual means “a person or community with only one
language.” Moreover, she uses the terms unlingual as the synonim of monolingual. As
the conclusion, monolingualism means a state where a person or a group of people uses
only one language, and possibly has a little knowledge about second language but not
yet able to carry even a casual conversation using the language.
2.2 Bilingualism
There are some definitions regarding bilingual. According to Haugen (1953)
bilingualism begins when the speaker of one language can produce complete and
meaningful utterance in other language. Moreover, Weinreich (1953) says that
bilingualism involves the practice of alternatively using two languages. Webster
Dictionary (1961) defines bilingualism as having or using two languages especially as
spoken with the fluency characteristic of a native speaker, a person using two languages
especially habitually and with control of that of a native speaker, but there has not any
exact definition of bilingualism. In Macnamara (1967) words “a bilingual is anyone who
possesses a minimal competence in only one of the four languange skills, listening
comprehension, reading, speaking, and writing in a language other than the mother
tongue”. In short, bilingualism means a slight ability to use two or more languages that
is possessed by a person. People who have this ability of using two or more languages is
considered as a person who has a bright linguistic intelligence.
2.3 Multiple Intelligences
According to Gardner (1983), there are seven types of intelligences :

Linguistic.
This kind of intelligence deals with children’s ability in many areas, which can be
separated one to each other, such as syntatic, reading, writing, and listening.
Therefore, reading ability is a part of linguistic intelligence. In accordance with the
writer’s research, reading ability only implies one of many abilities in linguistic
intelligence.
This is not to say that strong or weak skill of reading will exactly determsine
children’s linguistic intelligence. The writer stands on assumption that particular
skill of reading cannot indicate whole linguistic intelligence because there are more
aspects to consider such as writing, verbal (speaking) ability, accepting command,
and listening. This research is aimed to only measure children’s abilities in reading
Indonesian.

Logical-Mathematical.
Logical-mathematical intelligence deals with numbers, logic, and reasoning.
According to Gardner (1983), people often mistakenly take linguistic and logicalmathematical intelligences as the most important intelligences, but in fact, each of
all intelligences is considered as equal and one intelligence should not overwhelm
the others. The phenomenon of taking linguistic and logical-mathematical
intelligences as the most important intelligences reflects western approach of
education.

Spatial.
Spatial intelligence can be seen by the ability to recognize space, place, make spatial
judgment, and visualize through mind’s eye.

Musical.
This intelligence has to do with sensitivity to sounds, rhythms, and tones, which
finally make music itself. People with a high musical intelligence are normally able
to sing, play musical instruments, and compose music.

Bodily-Kinesthetic.
This kind intelligence opens big opportunity for people to perform in activities that
require muscular memory and motion, such as ballerina, athlete, soldier, surgeon,
and police officer.

Interpersonal.
Interpersonal intelligence deals with social context of communication in which
children interact with their environments, especially with people. Sales people,
politician, and activists are jobs that require interpersonal intelligence.

Intrapersonal.
Intrapersonal intelligence deals with intracommunication, in which children are
good in contemplating and reflecting things in their own minds. Professions like
writer and poet suit this kind of intelligence.
2.4 Reading Ability
As it is stated above, reading ability is obviously classified as the part of
linguistic intelligence. Based on Webster’s New World Dictionary, reading has the
meaning as to utter or repeat aloud the words of written or printed matters. Furthermore,
a reading skill can be described by Urquhart & Weir (1998) as “a cognitive ability which
a person is able to use when interacting with texts”. This complex cognitive process of
decoding symbols is known as lexical skill of reading ability.
Hughes (1989) noted that there are macro skills and micro skills of reading. The
distinction between these two levels of sub-skills is not made explicit, but it appears that
the terms “macro skills” refers to understanding the general ideas in the text
(information, gist, argument) while “micro skills” refers to recognizing and interpreting
the linguistic features of the text (referents, word meanings, discourse indicators).
Therefore, when people can read the word “love” and can separate it into “L-OV-E”, that means micro skills of reading is operated. On the other hand, when people
know and understand “love” and when this word can be used in the real-life basis, that
means macro skills of reading is operated. When people can get the gist of whole
passage, that means macro skills of reading is successfully operated. On the contrary,
when people only give attention to word meanings in the passage, that means micro
skills of reading is used.
2.5 Approaches of Reading
The theory used to support this research is Two Approaches of Reading by
Mitford Matthews. Several types of reform emerged (re-emerged may be a more
accurate terms for there are earlier iterations of each in the historical literature) to
counter the evils of what most educators regarded as the mindless drill and practice of
the alphabetic approach to beginning reading instruction. Despite the flurry of reform
attempts, only two gathered enough momentum to survive. The first, dubbed the wordsto-letters approach (Phonic approach) by Mitford Mathews (1966), introduced words in
the very earliest stages and, for each word introduced, immediately asked children to
decompose it into component letters.
Words-to-letters is the obverse of the alphabetic, or letters-to-words, approach.
However, with the alphabetic approach, it shares the goal of ensuring that children learn
the sound correspondences for each letter and the same set of underlying assumptions
about the nature of teaching, learning, and reading.
The second reform, which Mathews dubbed words-to-reading (Whole-word
approach) later came to be known as the look-say or whole-word method of teaching
reading. In this approach, children are taught to read a word as a whole.
2.6 Phonological and Alphabetical Coding
The terms “Phonology” is derived from Greek. “Phono” means voice, sound, and
the suffix “logy” means “word, speech”. Trubetzkoy (1939) defines phonology as the
study of sound pertaining to the system of language. Morover, according to Oxford
Dictionary (2007) Phonology means the speech sounds of a particular language; the
study of these sounds. Traditionally, Phonology focused on the systems of phonemes,
and also cover linguistic analysis, such as syllable, onset and rhyme, morphemes, words,
and sentences.
Adams (1990), and Fletcher, Scanlon, Vellutino, Snowling (2004) say that the
weaknesses in Phonological and Alphabetical coding will lead to a basic difficulty in
learning to read and spell. In order to learn reading alphabetic script, the reader needs to
translate or decode the letters into sounds, therefore it is referred to as alphabetic
decoding. Furthermore, a research by Geudens, Hogeschool and Leuven has documented
that a crucial phonological skill for the beginning readers is the insight into how spoken
words are stuctured and composed of individual sounds and combinations of sounds.
2.7 Components of Language Acquisition
Children active language learning process involoves acquisition of knowledge
and change in behavior. In teaching young learner, teachers or educators including
parents need to pay attention on the four components of language acquisition, which
according to Jalongo (1990) are phonology, syntax, semantics,and pragmatics.
Table 2.1 Components of Language Acquisition
Dimensions of Language
1. Phonology
Phonology refers to the study of sound
2. Syntax
Syntax refers to the study of grammar of a
language and mastery of grammar system
3. Semantics
Semantics refers to the meaning of the words
4. Pragmatics
Pragmatics refers to the social interaction system
of a language
Behaviors of Child
Comprehension of sounds
Example: Learning to say the word “no”, “yes”,
and so on
Recognition of the structure
Example: Plural nouns end with s
Comprehension of meanings
Example: understand the assosiation of the word
welcome with arrivals
Comprehension of social implication of the
utterances
Example: saying “thank you” to show grateful
2.8 Level of Reading Fluency
There are two crucial components of reading fluency. They are reading accuracy
and reading speed. The reading accuracy can be understood as the percentage of words
that are read correctly by the students and reading speed is the rate at which reading
happens or is done. Moreover, Ransinski (2004) divides reading accuracy level into
three stages, which are independent level, instructional level, and frustration level. A
student is considered to be in the independent level when he/ she can indentify 98% or
greater words correctly. Furthermore, a student is in an instructional level when he/ she
identifies 90—97% words correctly, whilst he/ she is in the frustration level if he/ she
cannot identify more than 89% words correctly.
Moreover, at the level of independency, a student reads for enjoyment. On the
other hand, the reading material is too difficult for a student if he/ she reads less than
90% of the words correctly, therefore the reading speed is often affected. Furthermore,
Rasinski (2004) says in his journal entitled Assesing Reading Fluency that the three
components of fluency are Accuracy, or accurate in decoding the words in text, second
is Automaticity, or decoding words with minimal use of attentional resources, and
Prosody, or the appropriate use of phrasing and expression to convey meaning.
Dowhower (1997) says beginning readers are nonautomatic because the focus of
their attention is on decoding, and not immediately ready for comprehension. Different
to Ransinski who elaborates reading fluency level into three stages (independent,
instructional, and frustrational level), Dowhower elaborates three levels of words
recognition skill as non-accurate stage, the accuracy stage, and the automatic stage. At
the non-accurate stage the student faces difficulty in recognizing words even when an
enough amount of time is provided.
Moreover, at the accuracy stage the student is able to recognize printed words
with accuracy followed with a high attention. The characteristic of an accuracy-stage
reader is he/ she reads rather slow and halting, without expression, and with poor
comprehension. On the other hand, at the automatic stage, the reader recognizes the
printed words without attention, with high rate speed, and with expression, and getting
the comprehension while reading aloud.
The second reading fluency factor is rate of reading or reading speed. Beginning
readers are tend to read slowly with great deliberation because, they are just learning to
“break the code” (Fluency: An Introduction, 2012), and they tend to read more quickly
orally. The speed of reading is divided into five grade levels, and for each level shows a
minimum expected oral reading speed. Those five grade levels and the minimum
expected oral reading speed are stated in the following table:
Table 2.2 Level of Reading Speed
Grade Level
1st
2nd
3rd
4th
5th
Minimum Expected
Oral Reading Speed
Speed of Oral Reading
To Move to Next Grade Level
of Material
60 WPM
70 + 98% or > CWM
70 WPM
90 + 98% or > CWM
90 WPM
120 + 98% or > CWM
120 WPM
150 + 98% or > CWM
150 WPM
>150 + 98% or > CWM
CWM-Correct Words Per Minute; WPM - Words per Minute