USING KNOW, WANT TO KNOW, LEARNED (KWL) STRATEGY TO ENHANCE THE SEVENTH C GRADE STUDENT’ DESCRIPTIVE TEXT READING COMPREHENSION ACHIEVEMENT AT SMPN 1 MUMBULSARI IN THE 2014/2015 ACADEMIC YEAR

Abstract

This classroom action research was conducted to enhance the Seventh C grade students’ descriptive text reading comprehension achievement at SMPN 1 Mumbulsari in the 2014/2015 academic year. Based on the preliminary study, the seventh C grade students still experienced difficulties in comprehending descriptive text. It was known from the result of the descriptive reading comprehension test administered by the English teacher that almost 75% of the total number of the students could not achieve the standard minimum score which was 72. Meanwhile, the students’ active participation in this class was only 28% that this results from the factors as informed by the teacher that the teaching method she used was monotonous and she also used the available textbook containing the reading texts that were relatively difficult for the students to understand. Therefore, KWL strategy was used as an alternative to enhance the students’ descriptive text reading comprehension achievement. Reading comprehension tests, observation checklist, and interview questions were used to collect the data. Meanwhile, the researcher also did interview to the English teacher to get the basic data for the research. This research was carried out in two cycles in order to meet the research criteria and the consistency of the research result. Cycle I covered two meetings of the implementation of the action and one meeting of the test administration. The result of the observation showed that 77.77% of the total number of the students participated actively in the reading class. It means that there was significant improvement on the students’ active participation in the reading class. Additionally, the result of the students’ reading comprehension achievement test showed that there were 77.14% of the total number of the students did meet the standard minimum score which was 72. It can be said that Cycle I was successful and did meet the research criteria. The improvement of the students’ descriptive text reading comprehension achievement was so amazing if it was compared to the students’ previous score on the reading comprehension test administered by the English teacher. However, even this research met the research criteria in Cycle I, it was significant to go on to Cycle II to get the consistency of the students’ reading comprehension achievement and active participation. The result of the observation and the reading comprehension achievement test in Cycle II showed better results. From the observation activity, it was found that 81.94% of the total number of the students participated actively in the teaching learning process of reading. The result of the reading comprehension achievement test showed that 82.85% of the total number of the students passed the standard minimum score. Thus, this means that the result of the students’ active participation and their reading comprehension achievement test met the research criteria. However, it can be concluded that the result of the actions in Cycle I and Cycle II met the research successful criteria. Based on the result of the two Cycles, it can be summarized that using KWL strategy could enhance the Seventh C grade students’ descriptive text reading comprehension achievement at SMPN 1 Mumbulsari in the 2014/2015 academic year.