Journal of Languages and Language Teaching, Vol. 6 No.1, Mei 2018

17

READING INTEREST OF SENIOR HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS: A CASE
STUDY

Umi Rachmawati
Universitas Muhammadiyah Magelang

Rachma15315@gmail.com

Abstract
Nowadays, the development of the teaching and learning of English as a foreign language has
been transformed. Learners do not only focus on the learning of speaking and writing but also
reading since they are required to be able to smartly respond to the texts they are reading. The
development of the information and technology forces the focus of teaching and learning on
the critical reading that might be less interesting for the students. The students may not know
their interest in reading before they start reading. A unique condition in Magelang regency, a
small town close to Yogyakarta, the students of senior high schools have achieved their best
achievement for their learning that can be seen from the rank of the school that becomes the
best school in terms of the final examination in Central Java. To know the teaching and
learning of English in that school can be an alternative for other schools. Based on the case
study conducted in some schools in Magelang regency, it can be found that the teaching and
learning are still varied. The findings were discussed under the following terms; students’
reading activities, mastery of reading skills, reading materials, and reading modality. It is a
problem for the success of language teaching as the students can have low motivation in
reading if the reading materials were not interesting for them.

Key Words: Reading, EFL, Reading Interest

Abstrak
Perkembangan belajar mengajar bahasa Inggris sebagai bahasa asing telah berubah. Pembelajar
tidak hanya berfokus pada bagaimana belajar berbicara dan menulis tetapi juga membaca
karena mereka harus mampu merespon dengan cerdas teks yang mereka baca. Perkembangan
informasi dan teknologi memaksa perubahan focus belajar dan mengajar oada penguatan
kemampuan membaca kritis yang dipandang kurang menarik bagi pembelajar. Para pembelajar
bias jadi tidak mengetahui minat meraka terhadao membaca sebelum mereka memulai untuk
membaca. Sebuah kondisi yang unik di kota Magelang, sebuah kota kecil yang terletak dekat
dengan Yogyakarta sebagai kota Pelajar, para pembelajar di sekolah negeri di Magelang
mampu mencapai nilai tertinggi di Jawa Tengah dalam Ujian Akhir Nasional. Salah satu
motivasi unik bagi peneliti untuk mengetahui kegiatan yang dilakukan di sekolah di Magelang.
Temuan tersebut dapat dijadikan alternative bagi sekolah lain untuk menerapkan tips dan trik
yang sama untuk mengembangkan pembelajarnya. Berdasarkan studi kasus yang telah
dilakukan pada beberapa sekolah di kota Magelang, penelitian ini menemukan bahwa proses
pembelajarannya masih beragam dan belum terfokus pada kemampuan membaca kritis.
Temuan-temuan tersebut akan dibahas lebih lanjut lagi pada aspek-aspek berikut ini: minat
baca, kegiatan membaca pemelajar, penguasaan kemampuan membaca, bahan bacaan dan
modalitas dalam membaca.

Kata Kunci: Membaca, EFL, Minat Baca



Journal of Languages and Language Teaching, Vol. 6 No.1, Mei 2018

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INTRODUCTION
The teaching of reading has been

changed from the learning of passive
language skills mostly known as reading and
listening to the active ones; speaking and
writing. The teaching of English had been
focused on the implementation of reading
class since the main purpose of learning
English was to be able to read and write. In
the following decade, the teaching of reading
has been changed into the teaching active
skills, speaking and writing. This change
was on the influence of the students’
curiosity of communicating with other
people all over the world. People are getting
interested in mastering the ability to speak to
be able to communicate directly with other
language users. The current trend of
language teaching in Indonesia, especially
with the influence of technology, the free
mass media forces the students to be ready
with any possibility of the free information
offered by the technology. Therefore, the
teaching of English as a foreign language is
on reading skills.

Facing the current demand and the
condition as elaborated above, the students
should have high reading skills mastery. The
students are expected to be able to not only
understand the texts but also criticizing the
texts they read. It can be seen from the
curriculum developed by the government for
the senior high school students. The main
purpose of English language teaching and
learning is the empowerment of the higher
order thinking skills. There are various
preparation to succeed this goal. The
teachers should be trained in critical reading
and they have to believe on the critical
reading benefits. The teachers are expected
to have positive views on the students’
ability to criticize texts.

To achieve the learning goals, the
teachers make their teaching and learning
preparation to accommodate the students in
mastering the reading skills. Training the
students’ critical thinking is not a direct
activity that does not pass the lower order
thinking skills. The micro- and macro skills
of reading should be mastered first before
they can criticize the texts. This requires
systematic preparation to make the teaching
and learning process more practical and
feasible. The selection of the reading
materials are also important for the teacher
to consider before they teach. The students
will have higher motivation in reading if
they access sophisticated reading materials.
Improving the students’ motivation during
the teaching is a must and it can be done
through providing engaging reading
materials. Then, the selection of the learning
activities is also one of the key success of
the teaching of reading. Monotonous
activities will be boring for the students and
it will decrease the students’ motivation in
reading. The teaching media to facilitate the
students in learning through selected
learning activities is highlighted depending
on the appropriateness and the feasibility.

The facility provided by the schools
also plays important role in the success of
the learning goals. The teaching of reading is
successful if it is supported by the
completeness of the facility. Many teachers
have known well how to teach their students
according to the teaching and learning
theories they have learned. Supporting the
students with the facilities that suit to the
students’ needs and demands is crucial for
the success of teaching and learning. In the
modern era, the teaching and learning should
not only be done based on paper works but it
also from multimodal used, for examples,
pictures and videos. The existence of digital



Journal of Languages and Language Teaching, Vol. 6 No.1, Mei 2018

19

media such as LCD and computer can help
the teacher in achieving the learning goals.
Students are curious on the use of new
media during their class and it can improve
the students’ motivation in learning. If the
schools do not facilitate the teachers with the
learning media needed, it is difficult for
them to succeed the teaching and learning.

From all of the factors elaborated
above, the main factor influencing the
success of teaching and learning is the
students’ motivation in learning. It is proven
that the students’ learning motivation
becomes one of the crucial aspects of the
success of the teaching and learning.
Students as human beings have their own
interest on something that can influence the
teaching and learning. The use of teaching
techniques, learning materials, learning
media and also the learning activities are the
external motivation which can improve the
success of the teaching and learning. While
the internal motivation can be improved by
having heart to heart relationship between
the teacher and the students also among the
students. By having high learning motivation
in reading, the students can improve their
reading comprehension and their interest on
the reading activities.

Dealing with the students’ motivation,
the reading interest of the students plays
important roles. The students’ interest on
reading influences the teachers in teaching
reading in relation with the learning
materials and the media used in delivering
the reading materials. The theme and types
of texts given to the students should be
considered based on the students’ learning
characteristics and the needs of the students
in learning. Types of media used to present
the teaching and learning materials directly
attract the students if the media are up to
date and represent the students’ current

interest, for example the use of internet and
computer. The students are getting familiar
with the use of internet and computer so it
will increase the students’ motivation to
learn. Improving the students’ interest by
providing interesting learning materials and
activities can be an alternative for the
teachers in reading classes.

Reading
Reading purpose has been defined as

the reasons behind the process of reading
any written texts (Thomas, 2001). There are
four reading purposes defined by Thomas;
being entertained, understanding life,
understanding oneself, and understanding
others. Being entertained means that the
readers read to be entertained which depend
on their characteristics of entertainment.
Through reading, various information can be
gathered to not only understand the content
which might be someone else’ experiences
but also feelings of others. Whether the
reading purposes can be classified into two
types, pragmatic and recreational purposes.
Pragmatic purpose deals with the reading as
a need of gathering information. The
recreational purpose pursues the enjoyment
and entertainment of the readers in reading
the texts.

It seems that reading purposes play
important roles on the reading
comprehension. As mentioned earlier by
Linderhold, Cong, and Zhao (2008) on their
study, reading purpose influences the
success of comprehending texts. Through
having different purpose of reading, the
readers will use different types of reading
skills. To read an important task of reading,
the readers will have different skills of
reading from the reading for pleasure.
Skimming and scanning will be done during
the reading of important task but reading for



Journal of Languages and Language Teaching, Vol. 6 No.1, Mei 2018

20

pleasure or entertainment will require more
skills of previewing, predicting, and also
making inference. Thus, reading purposes
might have different types of reading skills.

Rosenshine in Hudson (2011: 80-1)
defines seven skills of reading. They are (1)
recognizing sequence, (2) recognizing words
in context, (3) identifying the main ideas, (4)
decoding detail, (5) drawing inferences, (6)
recognizing cause and effect, and (7)
comparing and contrasting. Recognizing
sequence is the ability of know the sequence
of the text read. Understanding the meaning
of words in context also important skill of
reading. Finding the main ideas and the
supporting details can improve the reading
comprehension which finally lead the
readers to draw inferences from the texts.
Finding the pattern of the text, the cause and
effect, comparison and contrast becomes the
last reading skills needed. Those reading
skills are still on the reading comprehension
skills.

Teaching of Reading
The development of the information

and technology also influences the teaching
of English as a foreign language in
Indonesia, especially in the teaching of
reading. Basically, the teaching of reading
has been focused on the communicative
language teaching since the recent language
function is mostly to be able to communicate
with others in the target language. The
teaching of speaking and writing were
highlighted though the teaching of listening
and reading were also paid attention. The
integration of the four language skills are
viewed as important combination in the
teaching of language because language skills
are unseparatable. But with the explosion of
the written texts as the digital texts have
been widely spread and there is a great

demand for the society to master the skills of
reading.

Anderson (1991) previously has been
elaborated the principles of teaching reading.
The teacher should exploit the readers’
background knowledge and followed by
build a strong vocabulary base. The mastery
of the vocabulary in context may help the
readers to make the comprehension as the
third principle is teaching for reading
comprehension. After the students are able
to comprehend texts, they are exposed to be
able to have high speed in reading or
increase reading rate. Then, the students are
taught the reading strategies and the teacher
encourages the students to transform
strategies into skills. Building assessment
and evaluation are the next principle in
teaching reading. Lastly, the students should
have striven for continuous improvement as
a reading instructor. To encounter those
teaching principles, the teachers should
consider other aspects such as reading
materials, reading techniques, reading
strategies, and reading modes.

Following Anderson, Harmer (2007:
201-2) proposed some basic principles of
teaching reading in nature. Those principles
are (1) encouraging the students to read, (2)
engaging students in what they are reading,
(3) encouraging students to respond to the
content of a text and exploring the feelings
on it, (4) asking the students to make
prediction as major factor in reading, (5)
matching the task to the topic in using
intensive reading class, and (6) exploiting
the text to the full. Each of the principles of
teaching reading should be considered in
making preparation of the reading class,
during the teaching of reading, and the
evaluation of the teaching.

The teaching of reading is growing
based on the needs of reading itself. Many



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21

readers are getting realized what the actual
skills needed for their self-development. As
proposed by Trilling and Fadel (2009: 49),
the 21st century skills, known as 4Cs, are
critical thinking, collaboration,
communication, and creativity. Those skills
are also embedded in the teaching of
reading. The students are required to master
those skills to be ready with the real
condition of the new era. Thus, the teachers
should accommodate the skills in their
teaching by considering the features of the
subject they teach.

The teaching of reading has been
focused on the critical reading, for some, and
this is also for the mastery of the 21st century
skills. Critical reading skills are the
implementation of higher order thinking
skills. The mastery of lower order thinking
skills is also highlighted to enable the
students to master the higher order thinking
skills. Scanning, skimming, previewing and
predicting are the first reading skills should
be mastered before they master the critical
reading skills. The teachers should consider
the portion of teaching each skill and the
reading activities for the students to achieve
the learning purposes.

In the communication language
teaching, the implementation of
communication and collaboration has made
great changes and influences on the students
learning process, learning input, and learning
outcome. The communicative language
teaching emphasizes the teaching of
communicative skills which combines
collaborative teaching. The teachers
philosophically develop the teaching and
learning goals, activities, and materials
based on the communicative language
teaching. The collaboration for the students
can be done not only among the students, but
also with the teachers and third parties which

help to achieve the success of teaching and
learning.

The creativity facilitates the
constructivism in which students should be
able to express themselves and the teachers
should not limit the students’ creativity.
Creativity depends on the students’
background knowledge and language
mastery. The teachers should pay attention
on those differences to make positive
understanding on the students’ diversity in
their creativity. The teachers’ role in the
teaching and learning is to be able to control
the students’ activity and their free thinking
of creativity due to the guided free thinking,
especially for the young learners. This is
done to control the students’ in their freedom
in thinking so the misconception can be
avoided.

Reading Interest
Reading interest can be viewed a how

a person being excited and engaged in
reading activities (Thomas, 2001). It is about
the readers’ behavior during their reading
activities. Their excitement in reading
process which might be high or low
influences their engagement in their reading.
The readers’ engagement and excitement
depend on the reading activities which deal
with the reading materials and the reading
processes.

The initial study measuring the
relationship between reading interest and the
reading comprehension was done by
Bernstein (1955) that empirically prove the
fact that the reading interest impacts the
reading comprehension. The study proves
that the teachers and the stakeholders should
consider the students’ interest in reading. It
supports the theory of human reading
interest that may satisfy the needs of the
readers (Wade et al., 2006: 4). Each reader



Journal of Languages and Language Teaching, Vol. 6 No.1, Mei 2018

22

might have different reading purpose as
acquisition of information or other purposes.

Reading interest is not only derived
from the students as individual or human
being since they are growing. To encounter
this, types of interest in reading are
individual interest and situational interest.
The first interest, individual interest is
viewed as a relatively stable predisposition
that grows in accordance with increased
value, knowledge, and positive feelings so it
spends much time (Krapp, 1999 and
Renninger, 2000). It is symbolized by time
persistence, engagements, and strategic text
processing (Benton et al, 1998). Meanwhile,
the situational interests depend on the
external stimuli (Schiefele, 1998). The
external stimuli comes from the students’
surroundings for example, the teacher’s
stimuli in the teaching of reading such as in
the selection of texts.

The students’ reading interest lies in
the students’ psychological condition that is
not easy for the teacher to recognize the
students’ interest. Hurlock (1978: 114)
presents three types of activities represent
the students’ reading interest. Student’s
observation on his or her interest on reading
for example dragging the students’ attention.
The second one is questions describe the
students’ interest on a preferred activity. The
third is topic of the texts which can show the
students’ interests. Each of the activities
above can be done by the teacher to measure
the reading interest and help the teacher to
find the best reading activities and reading
materials before they teach reading.

Reading interest has positive
correlation with the reading motivation.
Reading interest can improve the students’
reading motivation that surely increase the
students’ involvement and achievement on
the reading. Although the accumulation of

the interest and the motivation is not a
sudden act. Adjah (2012) elaborates that
reading interest and motivation are
contributed to by a lifelong behavior from
previous experience, education, and
knowledge. Experiences, level of education,
and knowledge diversity contribute different
point of view and reading interest which suit
to their needs.

Actually there are some positive
behaviors that can be viewed from the
readers who have high level of reading
interest. Miranda et al (2011) present some
of the reading behavior in terms of the level
of text difficulty. Readers who have high
reading interest and engagement are keen on
understanding ambiguous words, ideas, and
contexts of the texts. They also share more
enjoyment during their reading than the low
reading interest. Presenting their
understanding of texts also a characteristic
of having high reading interest. They will
have some recommendation to others on
reading good books or reading materials.

RESEARCH METHOD
This study is a case study conducted in

some schools in Magelang regency which
measure the students’ reading interest during
the teaching of English as a foreign
language. As noted before that a case study
is a study which is done to get the real value
of the case arise. Case study is done to
engage with and report the complexity of
any social life aimed at representing
meanings of individual actors that bring it
into the settings and manufactures all (Stark
& Torrance, 2005: 33). A case study is done
not only to present a case which mostly
problems but it is done also to create the
betterment of the field being studied.
Mostly, a case study is done to take deeper
understanding of the case being studied.



Journal of Languages and Language Teaching, Vol. 6 No.1, Mei 2018

23

The process of case study had been
conducted in this study was a single case
study to measure the reading interest by
employing questioners, observation, and also
interview both the students and also the
English teacher. All of the instruments for
the teacher and the students were not same.
Those were differentiated in terms of the
students’ and teacher’s roles. Questioners
were used to measure the students’ reading
interest for at least three schools, two public
schools (SMAN 1 Magelang and SMAN 4
Magelang) and one public school (SMAN 1
Muhammadiyah Magelang). The number of
respondents were three classes, one school
one class with 30 students per class.

The interview was done in each of the
schools but not with all of the students. The
researcher only took some students due to
the time limitation and the homogeneity of
the class as observed before the interview.
One school had around 10 students to be
interviewed after the English class about
their reading interest. The interview was
done to get the confirmation of the students’
responses on the questioners. The teachers
were also interviewed in terms of what they
have given to the students during their
teaching of reading. The questions addressed
were based on the learning needs and wants
of the students.

Lastly, the observation was done in the
three classes of the three schools during the
teaching of reading. The researcher observed
the learning materials and the process of the
teaching and learning of reading. The
observation was done based on the
observation guideline which was done to
keep the researcher on track of the case
study.

The whole data gathered through the
use of observation, interview, and
questioners were analyzed to get one

coherent findings on the student’ reading
interest. The reading interest were in terms
of the reading materials, the reading habit,
the reading process, and the reading media
or modal both at schools and out of schools.
All of the data were analyzed though the use
of qualitative analysis.

RESEARCH FINDINGS
After the researcher conducted a case

study on some senior high schools in
Magelang regency. It can be concluded that
there are some findings on the students’
reading interest. The findings are elaborated
in terms of the students’ reading activities,
mastery of reading skills, reading materials,
and reading modality. Each of the aspects
are discussed in details below.

The first aspect is the students’ reading
activities during the teaching and learning of
reading. It was found that the students
mostly have the reading activities as
prepared by the teacher. Since the focus of
the English teaching is on the text types, the
teacher provides more activities to achieve
the main purposes of learning. Actually, the
main purpose of reading in the formal school
is done to enable the students in working on
their final examination. Therefore, the
reading skills mostly train are scanning and
skimming. Thus, the reading activities were
done mostly to master the scanning and
skimming skills.

Secondly, the mastery of reading skills
as mentioned before was in terms of
scanning and skimming. Based on the
observation done during the teaching of
reading, the students mostly deal with
scanning and skimming in order to be able to
answer questions on the reading skills. From
the interview done, most of the teachers also
stated that they implement other reading
skills during their teaching though they



Journal of Languages and Language Teaching, Vol. 6 No.1, Mei 2018

24

realize that the time allocation is too short.
There are only two hours per week for the
schools that implement the Curriculum,
2013. Other skills of reading were difficult
to maintain during the class so the teacher
mostly gave homework for the students to
train the students’ reading comprehension.
Another skill that is needed in the 21st

century is the ability to criticize texts. It was
surprising that the students do not know
exactly how to criticize texts since their
teachers seldom ask them to criticize texts. It
is because the teachers assume that their
students only have low order thinking skills
so they cannot criticize the texts. Of course,
if the teachers do not believe on what the
students’ competence, it is difficult for the
students to grow.

Considering the two aspect explained
before, it can be seen that the students still
have low reading interest. One of the criteria
having high reading interest is the
engagement during the reading. Low order
thinking skills show that the students have
low reading interest. They cannot enjoy the
reading and they cannot engage with the
texts. The level of higher order thinking
skill, criticizing text will be done by readers
who have high reading interest and
motivation in reading.

As mentioned earlier, one of the direct
reasons of having high reading interest is the
text selection. It is very vital for the success
of reading classes. Based on the data
gathered, the students wish to have more
texts that train their ability to think critically
but still on the tract of their current interest.
The teachers are expected to select
appropriate texts according to their students’
needs, wants, necessities, and lacks. Based
on the curriculum implemented in the
teaching and learning as proposed by the
policy maker, the teachers should also

accommodate the students’ wants in terms of
the reading materials. The teachers can
select texts that will attract the students to
read, for example by providing texts close to
the students’ daily life. Hence, the teacher
should have close relationship to know well
the students’ current interest.

Presenting the reading materials is also
considered in this mini study. It is the mode
of the texts presentation which might
improve the students’ motivation and
interest in reading. The students explained
that they want to have not only printed text
but also non-printed ones such as through
the use of digital media. The exploration of
texts in the internet can be a rich source for
the students to have more reading activities,
especially to criticize texts. The use of
computer and internet will also attract the
students to deal with not only printed texts
since it might be too traditional as it will
costly and limited. The students will have
their own priority to search for addition
information dealing with their limited
knowledge. It will increase the students’
reading comprehension and also their critical
reading. Thus, text presentation will
positively influence the students’ reading
interest.

From the elaboration of the reading
aspects selected in this study, it is clear that
the students want to have more engaging
reading activities that can improve their
reading interest. The students expect to have
more variations in reading in terms of
students’ reading activities, mastery of
reading skills, reading materials, and reading
modality. Although the students do not have
good skills of higher order thinking, they
need to have those skills to help them ready
to face the rapid grow of information and
technology in the 21st century.



Journal of Languages and Language Teaching, Vol. 6 No.1, Mei 2018

25

CONCLUSION
Reading has been the main focus of

English as Foreign Language teaching today
in Indonesia. The curriculum implemented
in the senior high schools forces the teachers
to teach the reading comprehension for the
students of senior high schools. In relation to
the demand of the 21st century skills, the
students should be able to not only
comprehend the texts but also criticizing the
texts. To be able to criticize texts, the
students must have high reading interest and
motivation in reading. The findings of the
data taken in this study derive some
conclusion that the students of senior high
schools in Magelang regency have
intermediate reading interest. Some of them
have high reading interest but some of them
also have low reading interest. The main
reasons for this are the less interesting texts
for the students, the reading activities done
during the reading class, the reading
approach, and also the reading modes. Those
factors should be considered by the teachers
and the stakeholders in their teaching
preparation, process, and evaluation to
achieve the main teaching goals.

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