READING ALOUD

English curriculum for junior high actually covers four language skills: listening, reading, speaking and writing, but the emphasis on reading skills of students seems very dominant. This is evident from the evaluation questions that are always dominated by the skill of reading. Nevertheless the basic skills of reading namely reading Aloud are included in one of reading skills should be taught in middle school was still very low, so many junior high school students who could not read English texts with the correct pronunciation and intonation, and often we meet students make mistakes in English pronunciation of a word. The difficulty is mainly caused by the inability of students to identify and generalize vowel sounds, consonant blending dipthong and in English.

Teaching English in literacy according to Wells (1987) is divided into four levels; performative, functional, informational, and epistemic. In the performative level, people are able to read and write, and speak with the symbols used; at functional level are expected to use language to meet the needs of daily living such as reading manuals or instructions; the informational level are expected to be able to access knowledge by language; being epistemic level is expected to transform the knowledge in the target language.

In line with the above, Curriculum 2004, which is better known by the “kurikulum berbasis kompetensi” targets that graduates of junior high should reach the level of performative and functional literacy. (curriculum 2004, p. 3). The logical consequences of it should be in the early stages of learning to read English much emphasis on the ability to distinguish the various sounds that exist or are more commonly known as phonic knowledge. This is in line with what was said Tampa 2005 in his article "A Critical Supplement to Every Reading Program":