THE IMPLEMENTATION OF DIRECT READING ACTIVITY STRATEGY TO IMPROVE THE SEVENT GRADE STUDENTS’ READING COMPREHENSION AT SMP N 2 JENANGAN IN THE 2013/2014 ACADEMIC YEAR

THE IMPLEMENTATION OF DIRECT READING ACTIVITY STRATEGY TO IMPROVE THE SEVENT GRADE STUDENTS’ READING COMPREHENSION AT SMP N 2 JENANGAN IN THE 2013/2014 ACADEMIC YEAR

I.Statement of the Problem

How can the direct reading activity strategy improve the seventh grade students’ ability in             reading comprehension at SMP N 2 Jenangan in the 2013/2014 academic year?

II. Background of Study

Language is one of the most important things in communication and it is used as a tool of communication among the nations all over the world. As an international language, English is very important and has many interrelationships with various aspects of life owned by human being. In Indonesia, English is considered as the first foreign language and taught formally from elementary school up to the university level.

English teaching is early way to increase students’ ability. This language is taught through formal school from elementary school until university .We hope that it will increase the students’ ability that English learning in their school. There are four language skills in English, they are listening, reading, speaking and writing. Listening and reading are known as receptive skill, and speaking and writing are known as productive skill.

In many second language or foreign language teaching situations, reading receives a special focus. There are number of reasons for this. First, many foreign language students often have reading as one of their most important goals. They want to be able to read for information and pleasure, for their career and for study purpose. In fact, in most EFL situation, the ability to read in a foreign language is all that students ever want to acquire. Second, written texts serve various pedagogical purpose Extensive exposure to linguistically comprehensible written texts can enhance the process of language acquisition. Good reading texts also provide good models for writing and provide opportunities to introduce new topics, to stimulate discussion, and to study language (e. g ,.vocabulary grammar and idiom). Reading is a skill which is highly valued by student and teachers alike.    

In reading activity, the students hope to get more information and try to find the main ideas each paragraph from the texts they have read. But, it is in the fact that some students still have many difficulties to understanding the meaning from the text. Besides, a lot of students can’t read their textbooks. The mastery of reading is still a significant problem in today's school[1]. It means that the mastery of reading skill becomes an essential problem frequently faced by the students.

Reading is an essential skill for learners of English as a second language. For most of these learners it is the most important skill to master in order to ensure success not only in learning English, but also in learning in any content class where reading in English is required. With strengthened reading skills, learners will make greater progress and development in all other areas of learning.

Based on the observation in SMP N 2 Jenangan, the researcher found some problems in learning process of reading comprehension. Teaching learning process is just translating the text and answering the question, based on the texts. This process absolutely makes the students bored. In learning of reading, just a few students pay attention. The others just listen what the teacher said, but they did not understand the content of the text that they had discussed. Usually the students were afraid of making a mistake when they read the text in a louder voice. Sometimes the student just translated the English text with use the dictionary, but they did not think the meaning of sentences. So, many students are not interested with the learning process, because they do not know what the meaning of the words or sentences.

Direct reading strategy is a strategy that provides students with instructional support before, during, and after reading. The teacher takes an active role as he or she prepares students to read the text by pre teaching important vocabulary, eliciting prior knowledge, teaching students how to use a specific reading skill, and providing a purpose for reading[2].

During reading, the teacher asks individual students questions about the text to monitor their comprehension. After reading, the teacher engages students in a discussion focusing on the purpose for reading, and follow-up activities that focus on the content of the text and the specific skill that students learned to use[3].

Based on the background above, the writer decides to carry out classroom action research entitled “The Implementation of Direct Reading Activity to Improve The Seventh Grade Students’ Reading Comprehension At SMP N 2 Jenangan In the  2013/2014 Academic Year”

III. Scope and Limitation

For this research, the writer makes scope and limitation as follows:

This research is reading with direct reading activity that can increase student’s reading comprehension at SMP N 2 Jenangan in the 2013/2014 academic year.

IV. Objectives of the Study

Based the statement of the problem above, the purpose of the study is “To describe how the direct reading activity can improve the seventh grade  students’ ability in reading comprehension at SMP N 2 Jenangan in the 2013/2014 academic year ”.

V. Significan of the Study

The results of this action study are expected to provide some useful advantages for:

1). The English Teacher

This study is expected to give an input for teacher, perticulary English teachers, concered with the mimplementation of teaching tecniques.

2)  The Students

This study is expected to give student, particulary the sevent grade students at SMP N 2 Jenangan in academic year 2012/2013, an awarness of increasing their reading skill by using teaching method.

3)  The Reader

This study is expected to give a conctribution to readers, particulary the stu teching reading.dents of English Departement of STAIN Ponorogo, in enriching reference concered with the iimplementation of teaching methods in.

VI. Theoretical Background

A.    READING

1.      Definition of Reading

Many people define reading differently. But generally we can state that reading is an activity that dealing with language message in written or printed form. It is a process of receiving and interpreting information encoded in language form via the medium of print. When people are reading, they use their sense of sight to get message that conveyed by the write. In other words, it can be spoken as communication via written language.

Nunan said.” Reading is fluent process of readers combining information from a text and their own background knowledge to build meaning”[4]. The reader’s background knowledge integrates with the text to create the meaning.  The text, reader, fluency, and strategies combined together define the act of reading. The goal of reading is comprehension.

Besides, Grabe and Stoller also define reading as “Reading is the ability to draw meaning from the printed page and interpret this information appropriately”[5]

Reading is the process of constructing meaning through the dynamic interaction among: (1) the reader’s existing knowledge; (2) the information suggested by the text being read; and (3) the context of the reading situation.[6]

Based on the several views above, the writer can make conclusion that reading is the activity to get the information from the text with their background knowledge.

2.       Purpose of reading

The most commonly for English language, people read for general comprehension  (whether for information or for pleasure).Here we  might read a novel, a short story, a newspaper article, or a report  of some type to understand the information in the text, to be entertained and/or to use the information for a particular purpose. The overall goal is not to remember most of the specific details but to have a good grasp of the main ideas and supporting ideas, and to relate those main ideas to background knowledge as appropriate. According to Grabe and Stoller suggest that there are seven main heading, likes :

·         Reading to search for simple information

·         Reading to skin quickly

·         Reading to learn from texts

·         Reading to integrate information

·         Reading to write (or search for information needed for writing)

·         Reading to critique texts

·         Reading for general comprehension[7]

Rivers and Temperly suggest that there are seven main purposes for reading, they are

·      To obtain information for some purpose or because we are curious about some topic;

·      To  obtain instructions on how to perform some task for our work or daily life (e.g., knowing how an appliance works);

·      To act in a play, play a game, do a puzzle;[8]

·      To keep in touch with friends by correspondence or to understand business letters;

·         To know when or where something will take place or what is available;

·      To know what is happening or has happened (as reported in newspaper, magazines, reports);

·      For enjoyment or excitement.

B.  Reading comprehension.

Definition of Reading Comprehension

All the models of reading that have been looked at so far have been designed with careful reading mind. for example, consider that their notion of the simple view assumes careful comprehension: comprehension that is in intended to extract complete meanings from presented material as opposed to comprehension aimed at only extracting main ideas, skimming, or searching for particular detail[9]

Besides, according to Olson and Diller, what is meant by reading comprehension is a term used to identify those skills needed to understand and apply information contained in a written material.[10] This statement is supported by Harris and Sipay, who say that reading comprehension ability is taught to be a set of generalized knowledge acquisition skills that permits people to acquire and exhibit information gained as a consequence of reading printed language[11]

The concept of reading comprehension could be bottom-up and top-down approaches. mentions that with the bottom-up approach, the reading is viewed as a process of decoding written symbols, working from smaller units (individual letter) to larger ones (words, clauses and sentences)

It is clear that comprehension cannot be viewed simply as the product of any reading activity. Rather, in any situation, comprehension will vary according to the reader’s background knowledge, goals, interaction with the writer, etc. Comprehension is a useful term to contrast with decoding, otherwise it is best perhaps taken as the product resulting from a particular reading task, and evaluated as such.

C.    Direct Reading Activity

 Definition of Direct Reading Activity

Direct reading strategy is a strategy that provides students with instructional support before, during, and after reading. The teacher takes an active role as he or she prepares students to read the text by pre teaching important vocabulary, eliciting prior knowledge, teaching students how to use a specific reading skill, and providing a purpose for reading.[12]

During reading, the teacher asks individual students questions about the text to monitor their comprehension. After reading, the teacher engages students in a discussion focusing on the purpose for reading, and follow-up activities that focus on the content of the text and the specific skill that students learned to use.[13]

The DRA is used to remove comprehension barriers and guide reading during a basal.

reading lesson.  It contains five steps:

1)   Preparation for reading.

This step includes activating students’ prior knowledge  related to the story, introducing new vocabulary and concepts, and building  interest and motivation to read the selection.

2).Guided silent reading. 

The teacher provides a purpose-setting statement or question to guide students’ reading.  The teacher may encourage students to read the entire selection guided by the purpose-setting question or statement or may use guided reading questions provided in a teacher’s guide to direct discussion on a page-by-page basis.

3).Comprehension development and discussion.

This step starts with a restatement of the purpose-setting question or questions from the previous step, followed by discussion questions that promote more in-depth understanding of story characters, plot, or concepts.

4).Purposeful rereading.

The purpose of this step is to give children frequent opportunities for oral reading after they have read the text silently.  Rereading often occurs naturally as children support answers to questions (“It says right here….”), or teachers may direct children to read orally a favorite part of the  story, a passage that describes a character, or a particularly interesting  conversation in the story.

5). Follow-up activities and skill extension. Skills may include word analysis, vocabulary, comprehension, literature concepts, or writing development.  Activities introduce skills or provide practice.  In basal reading programs the Standard II follow-up activities often are in workbook or skill book formats for students who  are reading at a similar ability level[14].

VII. Previous research finding

            The researcher will take a previous research finding that presented by Diana Herlianti under the title “ The Implementation of Direct Reading Thinking Activity to Improve The Eight Grade Students’ reading comprehension at SMP N 1 Jenangan in Academic year 2009/2010. The purpose of this research is to find that DRTA is very effective to help student to comprehend the text for the eighth grade of SMP N 1 Jenangan. From this research, the researcher makes conclude that Direct reading thinking activity strategy is not really active to teach reading comprehension for the eighth grade of SMP N 1 Jenangan.

VIII. Theoretical framework

            Reading is one of four skills which should be develop in teaching English because according to Hedge learning reading is very important for student. For many students learning to read in English is a priority. They may need this skill for a variety of reason such as to exchange the information or knowledge. Reading is also important to enrich student’s vocabulary in learning language.[15] There are four essential components of reading ability, such as phonemic awareness, phonic, vocabulary, fluency, and comprehension.[16]

Dr. Samuel J. Smith states that direct reading activity is a strategy that provides students with instructional support before, during and after reading. The teacher takes an active role as she or he prepares student to read the texts by pre-teaching important vocabulary, eliciting prior knowledge, teaching student how to use a specific reading skill and providing a purpose of reading.

During reading, the teacher ask to individual students, the questions about the texts to monitor their comprehension. After reading, the teacher engages student in discussion focusing on the purpose for reading, and follow up the activities that focus on the content of the texts and the specific skill that student learned to use.

IX. Research Methodology

1.      Research Design

The research design in this study is Classroom Action Research (CAR). According to Kemmis & Mc.Taggart in Kunandar.

”Classroom Action Research is a form of self-reflective inquiry undertaken by participants in a social situation in order to improve the rationality and justice of their own social or educational practice and the situations in which practices are carried out.[17]”

Kunandar said that Classroom Action Research (CAR) focuses on the students and teaching learning process in the classroom. The main purpose of CAR is solving the real problems that happened in the class and improving real acting of teacher in his/her profession achievement[18].

Classroom Action Research is a qualitative research, though the data that is collected is quantitative, that is a descriptive explanation, the researcher is the main instrument in collecting data, and the process is as important as the product[19] stated that the researcher’s attention is oriented to the understanding how the occurrence or the effect of the action goes on.

2.      Setting and Subject of Research

This research is conducted at the seventh grade students in SMP N 2 Jenangan. The subjects of this research were the students of seventh grade class B in academic year of 2013/2014 that consists of 35 students. The reason of the researcher chooses this subject is because the researcher followed teaching practice in the school and the researcher found some problems in learning teaching process in this school, especially in English teaching learning.

3.      Research Procedure

As the explanation above, the researcher would use Kemmis and McTaggart’s model of classroom action research in her research. There were some steps used by the researcher in her research, it is clarified as follows:

      i.          Preliminary Study

The research is held based on interview with the teacher of SMP N 2 Jenangan. The teacher said that the goal of teaching reading in SMP N 2 Jenangan is not yet totally achieved. This phenomenon arises because of some problems. The students’ reading comprehension is very low. They just read the text but they didn’t understand and catch the meaning of the text that they read. So, as a result the students often forgot about what they had read. Besides the students often stopped reading because the texts that were given by teacher were too difficult and hard to be understood. So, these problems caused the students not interested in reading activity. In addition, they were often less enthusiastic in participating in reading class.

    ii.          Analysis and Identification

The data gained from the preliminary study was analyzed in order to identify the problems found in the research. Those problems were:

1.)  The classroom activities in reading lesson made the students bored

2.)  The evaluation was based on the students’ reading product

4.      Research Instrument

In this research, instruments used in this research are observation check list, questionnaire, interview and test.

Data source

            Data source is the subject where have come from obtainable information. It means that  data source in a research is subject where the data can obtained. It is from the student and the teacher of SMP N 2 Jenangan.

Technique of Collecting Data

            Collecting data in the research, the researcher uses observation, interview, and documentation method.

1. Observation

            In which the researcher takes field notes in the behavior and activities of individuals at the researcher site. In these field notes, the researcher record, in an structured or semi structured (using semi prior question that the inquirer want to know) way, activities that the research site. The qualitative observer may also engage in role varying participant to a complete participant.[20]

By doing observation, the research will know the process of teaching reading using Direct reading activity (DRA) strategy.

2. Interview

            In the interview, the researcher conduct face to face interview with participants, interviews participants by telephone, or engage in focus group interviews in six to eight interviewees in each group. This interviews involve unstructured and generally open- ended question that are few in number and intended to elicit views and opinion from the participant.[21]

For a qualitative researcher, perhaps the main purposes are.[22]

1.Obtaining unique information or interpretation held by the person interviewed.

2.Collecting a numerical aggregation of information from many person

3.Finding out of “a thing” that the researchers were unable to observation themselves.

            3. Documentation

Documentation is a technique collecting data by collecting or analyzing written, picture or electronic document. Documentation is used to collect data through printed materials. This is in order to get the name of SMP N 2 Jenangan and the background of school. Documentation is a wide range of written materials can produce qualitative information.[23]

X. Data Analysis

a.Data reduction

                        Data reduction is the process of selecting, focusing, classifying and transforming the raw data from the field. This process takes place during the research process to do. The researcher use data reduction to get some data and some information related with the research. In this research, the researcher collect and select data from some English teachers, student and the headmaster of the school.

            b. Presentation data

                        Presentation data is a set of structured information that gives the possibility to draw conclusion and taking action. Among  other forms of presentation in the form of narrative text, matrices, graphs, and charts the network. In this research, the researcher set data in narrative form.

            c. Conclusions or verification

                        In this phase, the researchers made the formulation of propositions related to the principles of logic, picked as the findings of researches, followed by repeated reviewing of existing data to the data that has been formed and proposition that have been conducted.

XI. Organization of the Thesis

                 Organization is the explanation that used to make easy and gives some idea to make some people understand with the content of this proposal, to make easy this proposal collation is divided as many chapter that provided with by study that explained systematically, which is The discussion in this study consists of five chapter and each chapter in closely related to each other which is a unified whole the systeatic as follows:

CHAPTER I          : Introduction, this chapter server to describe the basic paaterns of the entire contents of thesis that consist of the background of the study, statement of the problems, objective of the study, the importance of the study, theoretical background, organization of the thesis.

CHAPTER II        : Answer the first statement problem. In this chapter the researcher conducted the materials about direct reading activity.

CHAPTER III       :.In this chapter the researcher describe about research method that use to analys this proposal.

CHAPTER IV       :.

CHAPTER V        : Conclusion, this chapter is intended to make easier for the reader who take the essence of the thesis that contains conclusion and sugestion.

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Arikunto, Suharsini. 2006. Prosedur Penelitian Kelas suatu Pendekatan Praktik. Revisi VI. Jakarta: PT. Rineka Cipta.

Baverley Hancook, Trent Focus For Research and Development in Primary Health Care : An Introduction to Qualitative Research

Burns, C Paul., and Betty D. Roe., and Elinor P. Ross,1984.Teaching Reading in Today’s Elementary Schools .Boston :  Houghton Mifflin Company

Grabe, William., and Fredrika L. Stoller. 2002. Teaching and Researching Reading. Great Britain: Pearson Education.

Hernowo, Quantum Reading (Bandung : MI.C, 2003)

John W. Creswell, Research Design : Qualitative, Quantitative and Mix Method Approaches

Nunan, David.1999. Second Language Teaching & Learning. Boston: Heinle & Heinle Publishers.

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(http://blog.beswandjarum.com/zulkifliarsyad/2009/10/24/definition-of-reading/ ) accessed on Friday , December ,13^th  2013

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[1] Leo, 1997 : 176

[2] Betts: 1946

[3] http://www.nea.org/tools/18345.htm

[4] Nunan, David.1999. p,68

[5] Grabe, William, and Fredrika L. Stoller. 2002. Teaching and Researching Reading. Great Britain: Pearson Education. P,9

[6] http://blog.beswandjarum.com/zulkifliarsyad/2009/10/24/definition-of-reading accessed on Saturday, December, 21th 2013

[7] Grabe, William., and Fredrika L. Stoller. 2002. Teaching and Researching Reading. Great Britain: pearson education. P,13

[8] Rivers and Temperly 1987:187

[9] Hoover and Tunmer 1993 : 8

[10] Olson and Diller 1982 : 42

[11] Harris and Sipay 1980 : 179

[12] Betts, 1946

[13] http://www.nea.org/tools/18345.htm accessed on Saturday, December 7, 2013

[14] http://www.eric.ed.gov/ERICWebPortal/search/detailmini.jsp?nfpb=true& accessed on Saturday, December 21, 2013

[15] Hernowo, Quantum Reading (Bandung : MI.C, 2003), 36

[16] The essential Component of Reading, http://www.readnaturally.com/approach/readempts.htm, accessed on 13^th December 2013

[17] Kemmis & Mc. Taggart in Kunandar 2008: 42-43

[18] Kunandar 2008:47

[19] Kunandar 2008 : 46

[20] John W. Creswell, Research Design : Qualitative, Quantitative and Mix Method Approaches, 185

[21] Ibid, 188

[22] Robert E Stake, Qualitative Research : Studying How Things Work (New York: The Guilford Press, 2010), 95

[23] Baverley Hancook, Trent Focus For Research and Development in Primary Health Care : An Introduction to Qualitative Research, 17