Englisia NOVEMBER 2013

VOL. 1 NO.1, 1-16

STRATEGIES IN IMPROVING READING 
COMPREHENSION THROUGH 
VOCABULARY ACQUISITION  

Khairil Razali
State Islamic University of Ar-Raniry Banda Aceh

Irhami Razali
Australian Development Scholarship Award Student

Vocabulary acquisition concerns on how people expand the numbers of words they
understand when learning a new language. Knowing words in a second or foreign
language is vitally important because the reader will be able to understand the writ-
ten text well and the speaker will be able to communicate basic ideas through vo-
cabulary even if the person does not understand how to create a grammatically-
correct sentence. As Madsen argued, “mastering vocabulary is the primary thing that
every student should acquire in learning English” (Harold, 1983). Therefore, acquir-
ing a sufficiently large vocabulary is one of the important tasks faced by L2 learners
in order to comprehend the written texts in reading as one of the four basic features
of language learning.

Keywords: Reading Comprehension, Vocabulary, Acquisition

INTRODUCTION

At higher education, reading becomes important as a way of knowledge

gaining. The reality reading takes roles in absorbing and disseminating information
to readers. Tony Buzan stated in his book, “reading is understanding what the writer
intended, taking in the written word, and also the assimilation of printed infor-
mation” (Buzan, 1991). Reading is a process of extracting a message from a text
which has been constructed by a writer using orthographic symbols, a writer encodes
the message a reader decodes it (Murphy, 1997).
STRATEGIES IN IMPROVING READING COMPREHENSION THROUGH VOCABULARIES
ACQUISITION

Madsen stated in his book Teaching Technique in English as a Second Lan-

guage, “mastering vocabulary is the primary thing that every student should acquire
in learning English” (Madsen, 1983). It is strengthened by Michael Lewis’s statement
as cited by Elena and Raquel that acquiring a sufficiently large vocabulary is one of
the important tasks facing Second Language (L2) learners (Elena and Raquel, 2020).
In Oxford’s taxonomy, stated “language learning strategies: what every
teacher should know”, the strategies generally divided into two major parts: direct
strategies and indirect strategies. Both of them consist of three groups: memory
strategies, cognitive strategies, compensation strategies and metacognitive strate-
gies, affective strategies, social strategies. Every single strategy has both advantages
and disadvantages.
Researches explored the acquiring vocabulary through reading. Subekti and
Lawson conducted researches together in the scope of vocabulary acquisition of
postgraduate students. This study was then reported in a paper entitled Vocabulary
Acquisition Strategies of Indonesian Postgraduate Students through Reading. They
used a taxonomy, which adapted from Lawson and Hogben (Lawson and Hogben,
1996). Subekti and Lawson grouped the strategies into non-elaboration strategies
and elaboration strategies. Furthermore, the strategies were then grouped into more
specific sub-categories: passive, active non-elaboration, simple elaboration, and
complex elaboration (Subekti and Lawson, 2007).
This research focused on key issues on vocabulary acquisition strategies.
They were strategies of English Department students in encountering new English
vovabularies in order to understand the meanings of the words. Moreover, the study
concerned about strategy do students applied the most effectively in acquiring vo-
cabularies.

Reading Comprehension
Hadley defined reading as communication since it connects the author and
the reader. It involves a mental process of the reader to create her/his comprehen-
sion of the text based on her/his purpose of the reading (Hadley, 2001). Through

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reading, the reader processes knowledge and information thus it is an active or re-
receptive rather than a passive skill. In addition, Tony Buzan describes that reading is
understanding what the writer intended, taking in the written word, and the
assimilation of printed information (Buzan, 1991).
Readers use their background of knowledge and experience to compose
meaning from the text in reading process. In this process, the readers connect the
ideas in the text to what they already know in order to get the comprehension of the
text. In addition, most people can understand the material they read after reading
word-by-word and spending a lot of time repeating the difficult term.
Grabe & Stoller, there are seven purposes of reading, those are reading to
search for simple information, to skim quickly, to learn from text, to get an integrate
information, to search information needed for writing, to critique texts and to achieve
general comprehension (Grabe and Stoller, 2002). Indeed, comprehension is the
ultimate goal of reading which is defined as “the understanding of what is being
read” (Baker, 2008).
Reading comprehension is an interactive process as a transaction between
the reader and the author through the text. Moreover, comprehension is not
something that happens after reading. It is the thinking done before, during, and
after reading. The reader’s capabilities, abilities, knowledge, and experiences affect
the act of reading (Supono, 2009).
In creating the meaning to comprehend the text a reader has to understand
the text well. To read a perfect comprehension, Henry states that 12 abilities to be
mastered by the reader. Here, the writer has summarized it into 5.
1. Ability to associate the meaning and understand words based on the context.
2. Ability to read and understand the phrase, clause sentence, paragraph and
whole selection.
3. Ability to get main idea, follow direction and draw inference.
4. Ability to get involved in reading, organization of the text, tone, mood and
writer intent.

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STRATEGIES IN IMPROVING READING COMPREHENSION THROUGH VOCABULARIES
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Ability to retain main idea and related it with reader experience (Smith and Emerald,
1961).

Vocabulary Acquisition

Nuttal’s states that “vocabulary is a lexical item closely defined as any words
or groups of words with meaning” (Bahar, 2011). Moreover, without sufficient
vocabulary, even though a student learns grammar well, the communication cannot
be facilitated. David Walkins summed up the importance of vocabulary learning as
quoted by Thornbury that “without grammar very little can be conveyed, without
vocabulary nothing can be conveyed” (Thornbury, 2002). This statement also
strengthened by Dellar H and Hocking D’s idea “If you spend most of your time
studying grammar, your English will not improve very much. You can say very little
with grammar, but you can say almost anything with words” (quoted in Thornbury,
2002).
Vocabulary acquisition concerns on how people expand the numbers of
words they understand when learning a new language. Knowing words in a second
or foreign language is vitally important because the reader will be able to
understand the written text well and the speaker will be able to communicate basic
ideas through vocabulary even if the person does not understand how to create a
grammatically-correct sentence. As Madsen argued, “mastering vocabulary is the
primary thing that every student should acquire in learning English” (Harold, 1983).
Therefore, acquiring a sufficiently large vocabulary is one of the important tasks
faced by L2 learners in order to comprehend the written texts in reading as one of
the four basic features of language learning.

Vocabulary Learning Strategies

The general ideas of vocabulary learning strategies is almost similar with
language learning strategies as it is a subcategory in the framework of language
learning strategies but it more focuses on vocabulary learning.

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Takac defined vocabulary learning strategies as some activities, behaviors,

steps or techniques used by learners to help them to discover lexical items of the
word, meaning and form, and then store it in their brain. Furthermore, when they
need it they can retrieve and actively use it in language production (Takac, 2008).
Besides, Cameron stated a general definition of vocabulary learning
strategies as “actions that learners take to help themselves understand and
remember vocabulary” (Cameron, 2001). In addition, Cameron tried to imply that
in learning vocabulary students apply some actions or steps that can help their
learning.
Furthermore, Catalan proposed a more details definition of vocabulary
learning strategies. She defined vocabulary learning strategies as knowledge about
mechanisms (process, strategies) which is used in order to learn vocabulary as steps
or actions taken by students. It emphasizes sequential actions or steps that students
take in applying the strategies or learning vocabulary, from finding out the meaning
to applying the information in actions.
Vocabulary-learning might be "shallow" and "deep". Learners read lots and
learn fast, and ignore many unknown words used the “shallow” strategies to help
them. These strategies are; guessing from the context, repeating a word several
times and lead to poor retention of the words. On the other hand, the learners who
learn slowly but lead to a greater retention preferred to choose the “deep” one.
These strategies are; dictionary usage, associations and keyword method.

Taxonomies of Vocabulary Learning Strategies

Over the years, the experts in vocabulary learning strategies had created
several taxonomies based on their experiences during the research (i.e. Sanoui,
1995; Gu and Johnson, 1996; Lawson and Hogben, 1998; Schmitt, 1997; Nation,
2001 as cited in Ruutmets, 2005, thesis). Therefore, this study adopts, Schmitt’s
Taxonomy as the major theory adopted in the instrument.

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STRATEGIES IN IMPROVING READING COMPREHENSION THROUGH VOCABULARIES
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Schmitt categorized vocabulary learning strategies into six groups of two

main categories, discovery strategies and consolidation strategies, and fifty-eight
individual strategies.
1. Discovery Strategies are the strategies that learners used to discover
denotation of new words when they first encounter them.
a. Determination strategies (Discov-Det): are used to discover a new
word’s meaning without recourse to another’s person expertise.
b. Social Strategies (Discov-Soc): are used to understand a new word by
asking someone who knows it.
2. Consolidation Strategies are the strategies that learners used to
consolidate meanings when they confront the words again.
a. Social Strategies (Cons-Soc): are used to understand a new word by
having group work.
b. Memory Strategies (Cons-Mem): are the approaches, which related
new materials to existing knowledge.
c. Cognitive Strategies (Cons-Cog): are the manipulations or
transformations of target language created by the learners.
d. Metacognitive Strategies (Cons-Met): are defined as a conscious
overview of the learning process and making decisions about
planning, monitoring or evaluating the best way of study (cited in
Rummets, 2005).
This study only explored several Schmitt’s vocabulary learning strategies in
the questionnaire. They are there are Discovery-Determination (Discov-Det), four
strategies from Discovery-Social (Discov-Soc), seven strategies from Consolidation-
Memory (Cons-Mem) and two strategies from Consolidation- Cognitive (Cons-Cog)
strategies involved to collect expected data.

Research Design
This study was a quantitative descriptive. The researchers applied
questionnaire to collect data. In addition, the questionnaire was adopted Schmitt’s

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Taxonomy. The samples of this study were 73 third year students of English Depart-
Department, Tarbiyah Faculty of Institute Agama Islam Negeri Ar-Raniry Banda
Aceh. The samples were students of three classes of reading comprehension. One of
important concern that participants already took 8 credits hours of reading
comprehension course.

Data Collection Process

Questionnaire
The researchers distributed questionnaires as the major data collection
instrument. It consisted of 21 closed-ended items and an opened-ended item. The
questionnaire (items 1-21) was adapted from Schmitt’s (1997) taxonomy of
vocabulary learning strategies. The questionnaire was administered to the third year
students of English Department of three units.

Data analysis and discussion

This part reveals the result of the study. The result would be discussed
descriptively.

The Questionnaire
From the total numbers of 73 students, 14 students missed the questionnaire
distribution due to several reasons. From the statistical calculation, the highest score
of vocabulary acquisition strategy of English Department students through reading
was “guessing the meaning with the help of the words that they have known in the
sentence or paragraph” (question no 5). Conversely, the results indicate that asking
the teacher to put new word in another sentence (question no. 11) was not as
popular as other strategies since the informants responded to this question was
relatively low ( = 2,31 ).The strategies were divided into three levels, which are
mostly used, averagely used and latest used. Mostly used strategies ranged from 4,0
points to 5,0 points, the averagely used strategies ranged between 3,0 points and

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STRATEGIES IN IMPROVING READING COMPREHENSION THROUGH VOCABULARIES
ACQUISITION

4,0 points, and the least used strategies ranged from the lowest one up to 3,0
points.
Furthermore, the researchers grouped students into two groups, namely;
students of higher GPA score and students of lower GPA score. In addition, the
higher GPA score ranges from 4.0 to 3.5 (33 students), and the lower GPA score
ranges from 3.49 to the lowest one (26 students).
In this analysis part, the researchers discussed 8 questions of 21 closed-
ended questions in questionnaire to compare students of higher GPA score and
students with lower GPA score. The first four questions were grouped into mostly
used and the other four were the last four least used strategies.

Four of Most Used Strategies

Firstly, question “I guess the meaning with the help of the words that I have
known in the sentence or paragraph” obtained the highest mean scores reached 4,
75 points. Therefore, if we combine between usually and always, we found a
different of the result among students which the highest score (72,7%, n=24
students) and the lowest score (50%, n=13 students). In could be concluded that the
higher GPA students perceive that guessing new words meaning assisted by familiar
words would be helpful. At the mean time, there was 50% of students believed on it.
But, most of participants agreed that this strategy came at first of more applicable.
Secondly, dictionary became a beneficial reference book and be more
helpful not only for new language learners but also for everyone. The fact that the
dictionary believed helps language learners. The statistical data shows that
participants stated 39, 4%, n=13 students stated always used dictionary when they
found new words. On the other hand, students with the lower score mostly chose
often level (30,8%) as the answer, therefore, this strategy become the third choice
chosen by them (see chart 5.3 for detail). Carrying dictionary for some students was
a burden since it is a little bit heavier than the other books. However, this question
became the second highest mean score result as it reached 4,56 points.

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Thirdly, English notebook was the third strategy mostly used by the third year
students to help them obtaining the meaning of vocabularies in reading. Let’s see
the chart below for the detail. English notebook at some points is necessary. Jotting
a list of new words in it facilitates readers to re-open dictionary when they forgot
about the meaning. Statistically proved that 33,3% students with the higher score
and 30,8% students with the lower one always write every new single words into their
notebook. They believed that notebook could improve their vocabulary acquisition
during reading. Additionally, this strategy became the second choice for lower GPA
students and the fifth choice for higher GPA students (see chart 5.2).
Fourthly, since using monolingual dictionary came as the alternative way of
carrying bilingual dictionary. Therefore, it is no doubt that the 7th question became
the fourth choice for students. The chart below will describe the different in result
between the higher GPA students and the lower one.
Generally, dictionary is divided into two types, bilingual dictionary and
monolingual dictionary. In previous chart (chart 5.5), we found that bilingual
dictionary appeared to be the second highest mean scores in vocabulary acquisition
strategies chosen by most of students. Here, looking meaning of new words from a
monolingual dictionary is the fourth highest choice. Furthermore, what a fantastic
and various result showed in chart 5.7 that related to the question no. 7 “I look it up
in a monolingual dictionary”. Students with the higher GPA score dominated the
result by reaching 30,3% in always level, and only 7,7% from students with the lower
one who believed so. In spite of the fact that it became the fourth choice, one
student with lower GPA score still never used a monolingual dictionary when they
stuck with new English words. Moreover, the strategy stood at the fifth choice for
lower GPA students and the third for higher GPA students.

Four of Least Used Strategies

The last four of the least used strategies will be discussed too by focusing on
the different between students with higher GPA and students with lower GPA. The
last four strategies were (1). I ask the teacher to put new word in another sentence,

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STRATEGIES IN IMPROVING READING COMPREHENSION THROUGH VOCABULARIES
ACQUISITION

(2). I create semantic networks of a word to remember it, (3). I write down the new
word along with my own drawings or pictures, and (4). I ask the teacher to explain
the meaning of the word in mother tongue.
Firstly, question no. 11 “I ask the teacher to put new word in another
sentence” is the first lowest mean scores by reaching 2, 31 points among another
21 questions. 48,5% (16) of students with the higher GPA score accompanied by
38,5% (10) of students with the lower GPA score rarely used that kind of strategy in
order to help them maintain the meaning of new words. Furthermore, several
students never asked their teachers to a new word into a sentence in order to help
them finding new words meaning. It is proved by the chart that 27,3% of students
with higher GPA and 19,2% of students with lower GPA put their answers in never
level
Secondly, using English notebook in acquiring vocabulary meaning was a
helpful strategy for most of students. However, when students were demanded to
create semantic networks, the strategy ended up as the second least used strategies
for them.
From the 16th question out of 21 is about creating semantic networks of a
word to remember it. 38,5% (10) of lower GPA students stood between rarely and
often level where sometime level become their choice accompanied by 21,2% (7) of
higher GPA students. Additionally, the higher GPA students had taken led in rarely
level as the answer with 11 students or 33,3% voices compared with only 4 students
or 15,4% of the lower GPA students. Furthermore, 18 students (9 or 27,3% of the
higher and 9 or 34, 6% of the lower) never create a semantic network to help
themselves maintaining the new words meaning. At the end, with 2,37 points of
mean score, the strategy end up to the second lowest result.
Thirdly, reading a book with pictures inside it able to help the reader in
understanding the meaning that lied behind it, such as reading a comic book.
However, not in this case, here, the readers were demanded to draw their own
drawings or pictures in order to assist them in comprehending meaning of new
words. The chart reveals that 34,6% (9) of lower GPA students stood at rarely level

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and 23,1% (6) at sometime level whereas the higher GPA students stopped at never
level by reaching 33,3% (11) and 27,3% (9) at rarely level. Based on the above
result, the writer concluded that only several students who interested in drawing a
picture or a drawing, therefore, no doubt, if the strategy became the third lowest
strategy used by students in acquiring vocabulary during reading by ending up at
2,47 points.
Lastly, question no 9 is a little bit similar with the question no 11 where
teacher was involved in the strategy. Asking teacher to translate the meaning of new
words into their mother tongue was not an appropriate strategy to be used by
students since the result showed that most of students’ answer found in sometime
level and rarely level. Students with higher GPA score put most of their answer
(45,5%) in sometime level whereas the lower GPA students stood in rarely level
(34,6%) as their choice.
In addition, besides 21 closed-ended questions in questionnaire there was an
opened-ended question asking students to share about the strategy that they used
other than 21 strategies mentioned above during reading process. Unfortunately,
there was not any new strategy found in the answers, most of them stated what had
been mentioned in the questionnaire.

DISCUSSION

To figure out the answer to the research questions, the data from
questionnaire measured and correlated to each other. The first research question is
about strategies, which English Department students use when they encounter with
new English words in order to understand the meanings of these words. In
accordance with questionnaire results, the first four of the highest students’ response
that the writer found were 1). Guessing the meaning with the help of the words that
readers have known in the sentence or paragraph as the first highest with 4,75
points of mean scores, 2). Looking it up in a bilingual dictionary as the second
highest by reaching 4,56 points of mean score, 3). Writing down new words on my

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STRATEGIES IN IMPROVING READING COMPREHENSION THROUGH VOCABULARIES
ACQUISITION

English notebook with 4,36 points ended up as the third highest and, 4). Looking it
up in a monolingual dictionary as the fourth highest by reaching 4,25 points.
Additionally, there were several strategies, which become the last choice for
most of students, namely; 1). Asking the teacher to put new word in another sentence
with only 2,31 points as the first latest strategy used, 2). Creating semantic networks
of a word to remember it by gaining 2,37 points, 3). Writing down the new word
along with the readers own drawings or pictures as the third latest one, and act.
Therefore, based on the result above, it can be concluded that the most
frequent strategy of the third year students of English Department through reading
was “guessing the meaning with the help of the words that readers have known in the
sentence or paragraph”. In the case of the result of the study, there was a slight
different between the present study and the previous one in result. Subekti and
Lawson, the previous researchers, found that using dictionary was the first frequent
strategy used by Indonesian postgraduate students in Australia and guessing strategy
became the second choice. It was in contradiction with the present study result,
where guessing the meaning with the help of the words that readers have known in
the sentence or paragraph stood at the top of the strategies’ list, then followed by
using dictionary and English notebook.
Factor that perhaps influenced their decision for choosing “guessing strategy”
as the dominant one was their lecturers’ suggestion to do not always rely on the
dictionary when they got problems with vocabularies during reading. Furthermore,
with the a little help from their vocabulary retention, the readers felt confident to
guess the meaning of new word from the sentence even though sometime they
found it incorrect.
In conclusion, every single strategy has it advantage and disadvantage.
However, everything is depend on the reader him/herself, when the reader felt that
kind of strategy suit him/herself well, then it is better to apply it in their daily. In
addition, if it does not, leaving it will be the best decision to make.

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CONCLUSION
From the total of 21 strategies adopted from Schmitt’s Taxonomy, the first
four strategies mostly used by English Deparment Students were 1). Guessing the
meaning with the help of the words that readers have known in the sentence or
paragraph, 2). Looking it up in a bilingual dictionary, 3). Writing down new words on
English notebook, 4). Looking it up in a monolingual dictionary. The most frequent
strategy used by English Department Students is guessing the meaning with the help
of the words that readers have known in the sentence or paragraph.
In conclusion, the least frequent strategy used is asking the teacher to put new
word in another sentence. Although dictionary was not the first most strategy used,
however it is still the best reference in looking for the meaning of the words. Both
students with higher GPA score and students with lower GPA score had the same
idea only in choosing the first most frequent strategy and the first less one.

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