IMPROVING STUDENTS’ READING COMPREHENSION ACHIEVEMENT AND THEIR ACTIVE PARTICIPATION BY USING SQ3R STRATEGY OF GRADE XI LANGUAGE CLASS AT SMA MUHAMMADIYAH 3 JEMBER

Abstract

Reading as one of the important skills becomes the main emphasis in learning English. Reading helps the students to enrich their knowledge. Therefore, the teacher should apply the appropriate strategy in teaching reading in the classroom to help the students understand and catch the message or information from the text. SQ3R is one of the appropriate strategies that can be applied in teaching reading comprehension. Each step in SQ3R has strength which enables to help the students gain their prior knowledge, catch the information from the text, and keep their memory longer than just reading. Based on the preliminary study which was conducting by interviewing the English teacher of SMA Muhammadiyah 3 Jember, it was known that the students of the eleventh language class had low score in reading comprehension achievement. This was proven by their reading mean scores were 64.32. The number of the students was 16 out of 31 students (52%) students who got score at least 75. According to the English teacher, the students had difficulties in comprehending reading texts because they lacked of vocabularies and also were not interested in reading materials. Besides, the students also lacked of participation in the classroom during the reading teaching and learning process. This was proven by the percentage of the students‟ who actively participated in the reading teaching learning process were 45.16% or 14 out of 31 students who were active in the reading teaching learning process. The researchers tried to overcome the problem by applying different reading strategy that is SQ3R strategy. Therefore, the Classroom Action Research was done to improve the eleventh grade students‟ reading comprehension achievement by using SQ3R strategy at SMA Muhammadiyah 3 Jember. The data collection methods were a reading comprehension test to collect data about the student‟s reading comprehension achievement, and the observation with checklist to get the primary data about the student‟s active participation during the implementation of the action in the classroom. The data were analyzed statistically by using the percentage formula. The action was implemented in two cycles because the result of the first cycle could not achieve the research criteria. The first cycle was done in three meetings included the test. The results of the classroom observation showed that 61% in meeting 1 increased 77% in meeting 2 of the students were active during the teaching learning process. It showed that there was improvement of the students‟ active participation from meeting 1 to meeting 2.It showed that the result of the student‟s active participation had improved in meeting 2 in the first cycle and achieved the research criteria that were 75% or more of the students who were active in the teaching learning reading process. In contrast, the result of the reading comprehension test in the first cycle had not achieved the criteria of the research success that was the students‟ reading mean score at least 75 and 75% of the students got 75 or higher in the reading comprehension test. In the first cycle the students‟ reading mean score was 72. The percentage of the students who got score ≥ 75 was 68% or 21 students out of 31students. Therefore, it was necessary to conduct the second cycle to achieve the research criteria. In the second cycle, some revision had been made to solve the problems found in the first cycle. The classroom observation and reading comprehension test in the second cycle showed an improvement. In the classroom observation, the students‟ active participation showed that81% in meeting 1 and 87% in meeting 2 of the students actively participated in the teaching learning process. It can be concluded that the result of the observation in meeting 1 and meeting 2 consistently increased and achieved the criteria of the research success. In the reading comprehension test, the students‟ mean score was 81 and the percentage of the students who got score ≥ 75in the reading comprehension test was 77% or 24 students out of 31 students. Based on those results, it can be concluded that the actions in the second cycle were successful because the results of classroom observation and reading comprehension test achieved the of the research success. Finally, it can be summarized that the use of SQ3R strategy could improve the eleventh language class students‟ reading comprehension achievement and their active participation in the reading teaching learning process at SMA Muhammadiyah 3 Jember. Therefore, it is suggested for the English teacher to use SQ3R strategy as an alternative teaching strategy to improve the students‟ reading comprehension achievement and the students‟ active participation in teaching and learning process of reading. Besides, the students are suggested to be actively involved in the teaching and learning process of reading by using SQ3R strategy. The research results were expected to be used as information or reference for the future teacher researchers to conduct further research dealing with the use of SQ3R strategy in order to improve not only students‟ reading comprehension achievement but also their active participation during the teaching learning process.