English Language & Literature International Conference p-ISSN: 2579-7549

Vol. 5 No. 1 e-ISSN: 2579-7263

https://jurnal.unimus.ac.id/index.php/ELLIC/index

The Effect of Literal Comprehension on the Higher Levels of

Comprehension in Reading Skill: A Longitudinal Case Study

Ratih Laily Nurjanah,

Salma Rafita Putri
English Literature Department, Universitas Ngudi Waluyo
Ungaran, Central Java, Indonesia
ratihlaily@unw.ac.id

ABSTRACT

Comprehension in reading skill is generally divided into 4; literal,

interpretive, critical and creative which has different indicators and types
of questions from one to another. Literal reading, as the lowest level of
comprehension is considered important to be mastered by students before
they work with higher level of comprehension. This is a longitudinal case
study aims to explain the effect of literal reading mastery on the higher
levels. This study involved 15 students of English Literature students
observed since they were in 1st semester to 4th semester. The instruments
used are working sheets to measure students’ ability in each level of
comprehension. The findings showed that students with good and very
good mastery of literal comprehension worked good on interpretive,
critical and creative level. The students with poor mastery of literal
comprehension did not have good results on interpretive, critical and
creative level. It revealed that literal comprehension has important role in
building students’ comprehension before they continue to the next levels.

Keywords: number of keywords consist 3-5 words or phrases.

INTRODUCTION

Reading skill mastery is regarded crucial because reading without it

is simply following words on a text. Many studies have been undertaken to
improve pupils' reading skills through the use of various methodologies,
media, or techniques. Kazemi et al. (2020) used a repetitive procedure of
pretest- teach- retest as a dynamic assessment cycle to contribute to the
process of increasing reading comprehension skills.
Shemshadsara et al. (2019) used structural awareness to increase
the reading comprehension skills of EFL students in their other study.
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 English Language & Literature International Conference p-ISSN: 2579-7549
Vol. 5 No. 1 e-ISSN: 2579-7263
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Another case study reported by Douglas (2019) tried to increase students'

reading comprehension skills through the use of a Reading Lab. These
studies demonstrate how reading comprehension competence remains the
center of reading skill.
Reading skill, according to Oakhill et al. (2015, p.12), is associated
with the ability to process a single word while being supported by linguistic
understanding. Comprehension refers to pupils' capacity to comprehend a
text or material, which includes predicting what will happen next, checking
their understanding, clarifying unclear parts, and relating what they read to
their experiences or past knowledge. Because academic growth in school is
based on understanding, evaluating, and applying knowledge, pupils'
reading comprehension deficiencies might impede their advancement.
Nanda (2020) backs this up by noting that inadequate ability leads to lower
academic accomplishment, lower problem-solving skills, and inhibition in
the future learning process. The definitions above demonstrate how critical
proper training is at each level of reading. Cabral and Tavares (2002)
observed that the majority of the students engaged in their study had an
intermediate level of reading competency, despite the level they should
have reached. It has been discovered that students adopt particular general
methods related to specific tasks and learning habits in order to feel more
at ease when doing reading activities. Students, on the other hand, tend to
avoid using techniques that entail interaction with professors, as well as
more specialized tactics that may control/determine their academic writing
duties and indicate a greater level of expertise. This method is seen to be
appropriate for use in the high-tech era, as classrooms are no longer held
face-to-face.
While the demand for high-level readers, such as university students, is
increasing, many university students are unable to meet the requirements. They
are still struggling with lower-level skills that should have been mastered in
previous stages. The preliminary study was conducted in three levels of reading
comprehension classes: interpretative, critical, and creative. The study
discovered that students with higher levels of reading comprehension still
struggled with aspects that children with lower levels of reading comprehension
should have no trouble with, such as determining the major concepts and topic
of reading.
In general, reading skills are categorized into four tiers. According to
Sari (2015), the materials supplied to students should be based on the level
that students will master. The first level is literal reading, in which pupils
are expected to reproduce the facts supplied by the writer, such as grasping
word meanings, recalling stated concepts, summarizing ideas, recalling
important ideas, and acknowledging the sequence of events or information.
The second level is the interpretive level, in which students are expected to
work with textual significances, observe numerous relationships in the text,
create a comparison, draw a conclusion, and generalize knowledge. It
comprises information reasoning such as determining the writer's tone,

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Vol. 5 No. 1 e-ISSN: 2579-7263
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aims, attitude, concluding facts, and major idea. The third level is critical,
where pupils must study, evaluate, and judge material. The writer employs
language that can direct readers' understanding based on the data offered,
the writer's point of view, intent, and honesty. It discusses examining and
evaluating language quality using some standards. In general, the greatest
level is the creative level, which works with readers' involvement in the
material to rethink the ideas. Responding using literary techniques of
various kinds, styles, and structures is required. As a result, each level has
different learning objectives, and it is preferable for pupils to master the
lower levels before moving on to the higher ones.
Literal reading as a low level of comprehension encompasses
behaviours in the learning process that are said to be crucial as the
foundation of higher-level comprehension growth. According to Saadatnia
et al. (2017), literal understanding necessitates students extracting specific
information from a paragraph. This requires the capacity to process words
individually and recognize individual words in order to derive meaning
from a long string of words that includes propositions and sentences. Literal
reading comprehension should contain the context, facts, and sequence that
can exist in a text, according to research. The context can be defined as the
entire image formed by the correlation of facts, where facts are information
placed in a text and sequences are how the information is organized in
chronological order of occurrences. This level of understanding also
requires pupils to determine the correct and accurate meaning of words or
terminology used in a book at the word or sentence level, to gather
information from reading, and to paraphrase what they learn. This diagram
depicts the skills that students should have mastered by the end of the
literal reading course.
Literal reading, being the lowest level of understanding, is regarded
important because it needs pupils to develop skills. This highlights the need
of assisting children with literal comprehension using a variety of tactics.
Naniwarsih & Andriani (2018) reveal in their study that pupils in their third
year of junior high school have a strong degree of literal reading
comprehension. However, the questionnaire results suggest that pupils
struggle with vocabulary since they have inadequate vocabulary
knowledge. Given the importance of vocabulary acquisition in literal
reading comprehension, the study's findings cannot be justified as valid.
This present study attempts to answer the gap among the previous
researches about how literal comprehension in reading affects the higher
levels of comprehension; interpretive, critical, creative. It is important to
observe how literal comprehension plays roles in the development of
comprehension skill especially in reading skill.

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 English Language & Literature International Conference p-ISSN: 2579-7549
Vol. 5 No. 1 e-ISSN: 2579-7263
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METHOD

The design used in the present study is Longitudinal case study. In a study
presented by Šamo & Mikulec (2018), the design was used to observe the
development of reading metacomprehension of EFL students. In this present
study, longitudinal cases study was employed to observe how literal reading
comprehension they get on the 1st semester affects their skill in interpretive
reading level on 2nd semester, critical reading level on 3rd semester and the creative
reading level on 4th semester.
This study involves 20 students of English Literature as the subjects.
In each semester, their achievement in each semester is recorded to be
used as the benchmark for their achievement on the next semester. The
achievement included the mastery of each aspect of reading comprehension
according to the criteria of the level.

FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION

The findings revealed that 22 students with good level of literal reading
comprehension with score between 81-85 showed good level of interpretive
reading comprehension by being able to completing assignment in each level
with types of questions that are suitable to the level of the comprehension.
When students reached the interpretive level, they had no problems
working on questions about the meaning of the text, noting numerous
relationships in the text, making a comparison, drawing a conclusion, and
generalizing information. Since they have mastered the notion of literal reading
comprehension, it includes reasoning with information such as getting the tone
of the writer, the purposes, the attitude, concluding facts, and the primary idea.
Related to the ability of critical level, the students easily learn,
evaluate, and judge information since they have no problems in
understanding main idea of a paragraph which is gained in literal reading
level.
When the students reached the creative level, they no longer have
difficulties in completing questions such as delivering opinions on a text since
they have comprehended the text thoroughly by building the ability to
understand words in literal reading level. This understanding is supported by
having strong foundation built in every level of comprehension.
The findings above support the idea of Oakhill et al. (2015, p.12) which
state that it is important to have the ability to process words before actually
works with language comprehension. Literal reading comprehension builds
students ability by starting to introduce words meaning before working
with longer texts.

CONCLUSION

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It can be inferred that it is important to build strong literal reading

comprehension as a foundation for students on the higher level of reading
comprehension. These findings are expected to contribute to the field of
study by giving insight on how literal reading comprehension as the lowest
level of comprehension has important roles in stduents’ language
development. Future studies are expected to examine whether the effects
created are related to gender of students.

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