A Descriptive Study on the Eghth Grade Students' Attitude in Reading Habit and Their Reading Comprehension Ability of Descriptive Texts at SMP Plus Nurul Hikmah Pamekasan

Abstract

Reading has important role for the students in many aspects. Most of the students learning activities require reading skills, such as in mastering a lot of subjects at school, having a test, reading for pleasure and others. On the other hand, knowing the students’ attitude in reading is beneficial. It is because the students’ attitude in reading will show the tendencies and beliefs of the students in reading process. That is why the researcher is interested in conducting a research that deals with this topic at SMP Plus Nurul Hikmah Pamekasan. Besides, SMP Plus Nurul Hikmah Pamekasan is one of the schools which has strict entrance tests, and most of those entrance test need reading skill. This research was conducted to investigate the eighth grade students’ attitude in reading habit and their reading comprehension ability of descriptive texts at SMP Plus nurul Hikmah Pamekasan in the 2012/2013 academic year. The research respondents were eighth grade class. They were determined by purposive sampling method. The population consisted of two classes: VIII A and VIII B class. Each of them had 33 students, so the total number of the population was 66 students. The researcher took all of them as the sample because the total number of the population was less than one hundred.

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The data of this research were collected through some instruments. They were questionnaire, reading comprehension test, interview and documentation. The reading comprehension test was aimed to measure the students’ ability in comprehending the descriptive texts. The result of questionnaire confirmed that 42.2% of the students (28 students) had positive attitude, 30.3% of the students (20 students) had neutral attitude, and 27.3% of the students (18 students) had negative attitude in reading habit. Hence, among 28 students who had positive attitude in reading habit, the student number 31 of VIII A class achieved the highest score of reading comprehension test, the score was 83. Among the students who had negative attitude in reading habit, the student number 29 of VIII B class got the lowest achievement in reading comprehension test, and the score was 46. However, among the students’ who had neutral attitude, there were also the highest and the lowest score achieved by the students. The highest score was 73, and the lowest score was 46. The result of reading comprehension test showed that the students achievement in reading descriptive texts was categorized as “poor”, because 50% of the students (33 students) achieved the score between 50 - 59. Besides, the students words comprehension was classified in “poor” category, due to 39.4% of the students (26 students) achieved score between 50 - 59. Meanwhile, the students sentences comprehension was categorized as “poor”, because as many as 60.6% of the students (40 students) gained score between 50 - 59. The students’ paragraphs comprehension belonged to “good” category. It was proved by 37.9% of the students who got score between 70 - 79. In addition, 34.9% of the students were categorized as “fair” in the whole texts comprehension because they gained score between 60 - 69. Nonetheless, it was clear that the eighth grade students’ ability at SMP Plus Nurul Hikmah Pamekasan in comprehending descriptive texts belonged in “poor” category. It was proved by most of the students’ achievement, 50% of the students (33 students) achieved score between 50 – 59. It was also known that the eighth xiv

grade students’ had positive attitude in reading habit. Most of them as many as 28 students or 42.2% of the students had positive attitude. Although most of the students had positive attitude in reading habit, their achievement fell in “poor” category. It can be concluded that there is no significant relation between the students’ achievement and the students’ attitude.