Improving Reading Comprehension Achievement Of The Eighth Grade Students At Smp

English, nowadays, plays a more important role for people. Based on Tarone (2005), English as an international language is applied and learned by all people in the world. In addition, Naved (2000) mentions English is very necessary as a tool to understand and develop the information of science. English is really needed for technology progress. Therefore, English serves as an international language and requires to be learned in order to cope with the science and technology progress. English has four language skills that must be learned by the students, namely are listening, speaking, reading and writing.

The four skills are divided in to receptive and productive skills. Harmer (2001) explains that receptive skills are a term used for reading and listening skill where meaning is extracted from the discourse. Meanwhile, Cooper (2015) argues that the productive skills are the term for speaking and writing skill where students actually possess to produce language themselves. Therefore, in order to master the English language, students should be aware and they must also learn these four skills. In relation to those four language skills, reading is consided more important. It allows us to know and understand the explicit or explicit message conveyed by the author in written language. Based on Pang, Muaka, Bernbardt, and Kamil (2003), a reader reads a text to understand its meaning, as well as to comprehend the message of text. In additon, Burt, Peyton, Adam (2003) state that reading is essentially the process of gaining important and meaningful information from written language.

This reading is an important part that needs to be learned and the students will receive much information and new information from a text they have never known before. in addition, reading has also many roles in academic field Grabe and Stoller (2016) argue that the role of reading in academic is to discover a new information, general comprehension, to learn recent information, synthesize and assess information. Besides reading become global meaning roles in academic, reading also attends in every academic subject areas. Cimmiyotti (2013) says that reading is a skill applied in every academic subject area and it is a logical domain to examine for a correlational relationship with other subject areas. therefore, reading has played an necessary role in academic area including in all other subjects. Despite its importance, reading is also considered difficult to be learned. According to Oakhil (2007), reading disability may be characterized by difficulties in single word reading, decoding or sounding out words, reading sight words, and insufficient phonological processing.

In addition, Westwood (2008) states that they are limited vocabulary knowledge, lack of fluency, lack of familiarity with the subject matter, problem with processing information, and problems in recalling information after reading. Therefore, the difficulties in reading include insufficient amount of vocabulary, deficiency of understanding of the text, and the familiarity of the reading text. In addition, OECD PISA expresses that reading literacy in Indonesia is known at an unsatisfactory level. In 2009, Indonesia was ranked in the 57 out of 65 countries with mean score 402 compared with OECD mean which was 493 (OECD, 2010). Indonesia, then, was ranked in the 60 out of 65 countries participating in PISA 2012 with mean was 496 (OECD, 2013). The data clearly assert that adolescents' reading literacy in Indonesia is still poor compared to those of other countries (as cited in Vitaloka, 2014), (p. 1). In addition, based on the survey by OECD PISA (2015) about Reading, it is found that Indonesia is in the 64th rank out of 70 countries. The score was 397 while the OECD PISA average score was 493. From the previous facts, it can be showed that Indonesia’s reading ability is still below average.

Preliminary study was conducted by interviewing one of the teachers of English and the eighth grade students at SMP Karya Ibu Palembang. It was reported that students were difficult to comprehend reading text, were lack in vocabulary, were not familiar with the reading text. The students were difficult to find information in a reading text such as contents, sentence structures and summary in texts. Then, I also observed the lesson plan used by teacher. I found that the teacher only gave example how to read aloud for the students, explained definition and purpose of reading text, underlined difficult word, and translated difficult word. In order to cope with the problems, I will offer the students with certain strategy involving brainstorming, show the picture to make the student more familiar with the text, explain the text based on global meaning to make the students get contents of text, the students required to have summary and give structure of text, which is not found in the previous reading classes.

Based on the explanation above in preliminary study, the teacher should find and implement an appropriate technique in solving the students’ difficulty. Smith and Ragan (1999) say that teachers should select or evolve activities and information sources that will assist learners in reaching the learning achievement. It shows that, the teachers do not only focus on one teaching method in helping the students to improve their English reading skill, the teachers should use different method to solve students in difficulties reading text.

One of the strategies suggested to solve the problems in reading is Schema Activation Strategy. An (2013) states that schema activation strategy will give the students more attention in vocabulary and basic language points. It can guide students to improve from sensory thinking to imaginative thinking so that students can be active in their process of reading, guessing, confirming the text positively. Shen (2008) says that schema activation strategy is also bridge between input and output. It helps the students to find the content of text easily, and to get summary the text from produce their thinking. Ping & Sha (2016) define that schema into three types, which have great effect on reading comprehension. Language schema covers vocabulary, sentence structure, and grammar. Content schema refers to the background knowledge about content, It will be suitable for the students more familiar with the text. Form schema refers to the discourse structure of various genres of articles. Each kind of articles has its specific framework. Therefore, schema activation is appropriate for the eighth grade in teaching reading comprehension.

In relation to Schema Activation as a strategy in teaching reading, some studies have revealed if Schema Activation can solve the problems of students. It was proven by Fitriani in 2011, who found that the use of Schema Activation strategy was effective teaching method to improve the students’ reading comprehension of tenth grade students at SMA YP Unila Bandar Lampung. Secondly, the study conducting by Dewi (2014) showed that Schema Activation Strategy is a suitable teaching method to improve the students’ reading comprehension of eight grade student at SMPN I Mlati Sleman. Then, Hastuti in 2014, who found that the use of Scehma Activation strategy significantly effective for the students in reading comprehension text of the eighth grade students at SMPN 1 Surakarta. Dealing with the explanation of preliminary study and previous related study, I would like to conduct a research entitled “Improving Reading Comprehension Achievement of the Eighth Grade Students at SMP Karya Ibu Palembang by using Schema Activation Strategy”.

Research Problems

The problems of this study are formulated in the following questions:

1. Is there any significant difference on the eighth grade students’ reading comprehension achievement by using Schema Activation strategy than those who are not at SMP Karya Ibu Palembang?
2. Are there any significant differences on the eighth grade students’ reading comprehension achievement in poor, average, and good categories by using Schema Activation strategy and those who are not at SMP Karya Ibu Palembang?

Research Objectives

In accordance with the problems above, the objectives of this study are:

1. To find out whether or not there is a significant difference on the eighth grade students’ reading comprehension achievement by using Schema Activation strategy than those who are not at SMP Karya Ibu Palembang. 2) To find out whether or not there is a significant difference on the eighth grade students’ recount reading comprehension achievement between those who are taught by using Schema Activation strategy and those who are not at SMP Karya Ibu Palembang.

Significance of the Study

The results of this study are expected to give beneficial contributions for some sides: Firstly, it is hoped that this study will be beneficial for English teacher to develop and improve learners’ reading comprehension by using Schema Activation strategy when teaching reading. This strategy can be used as a reference to enrich teachers’ knowledge in teaching process.

Secondly, for students, it will be an effort to improve their reading skill and to solve the students’ problems in reading comprehension.

Thirdly, for me, this study is expected to add and enrich the writer’s knowledge and understanding in teaching reading comprehension by using Schema Activation strategy in the future time and conducting education research.

Lastly, this study will give sources or references and information about Schema Activation strategy for the next researcher to conduct similar further research.