ds will not serve as obstacles to their reading. Rewriting the text into a simplified form is another way of assisting their struggling attempts to comprehend the text. It will definitely provide some background knowledge, so they will be able to anticipate the content and make the text more tolerable to digest.The use of proper questioning techniques is also fundamental in aiding our students’ comprehension. Signpost questions are a good way of guiding them to the important points in the text. It is helpful to present our students with questions or task before they started reading. This will compel them to read purposefully in order to find answers to the questions or complete the task. In order to avoid misconception of ideas, pictures could also be introduced. For example, when reading about a pet cat, there is a possibility of Malay students of associating the word with the Malay word ‘cat’ which means paint. In a way, I believe, this can cause tunnel vision as their brains supply them with the wrong information as they go on reading. Ludicrous as it may seem, I did come across this problem when I was teaching a weak class in a FELDA scheme. To prevent this incident from recurring, I prepared picture charts whenever we had reading lessons.Nuttal asserted that when reading a text, we use top-down and bottom-up approach. Both approaches, although normally an unconscious process can be adopted as conscious strategies when approaching a difficult text. However, to correct ‘tunnel vision’ bottom-up approach is more relevant as we need to make sure we understand every small part of the text. In fact the techniques mentioned above uses bottom-up approach. Only then can we make predictions or develop a rough idea of the content that incidentally is the top-down approach. In practice, both approaches will somehow merge in order for the reader to gain absolute comprehension of the text, shifting fro...
