CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION 1.1. The Background of the Study There are four language skills that are required by the students in studying English, namely reading, writing, speaking, and listening. Brown (2001:298) states that reading ability will have a best development if it associates with writing, listening, and speaking. But reading is one of those skills that are not easy as people think. In doing reading students are expected to have knowledge. Knowledge comes from reading. When a student understands what he reads, he will get some information that he can share or communicate with other people. It can be concluded that reading is the important skill to improve the ability 1
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CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
1.1. The Background of the Study
There are four language skills that are required by the students in studying
English, namely reading, writing, speaking, and listening. Brown (2001:298)
states that reading ability will have a best development if it associates with
writing, listening, and speaking. But reading is one of those skills that are not easy
as people think. In doing reading students are expected to have knowledge.
Knowledge comes from reading. When a student understands what he reads, he
will get some information that he can share or communicate with other people. It
can be concluded that reading is the important skill to improve the ability of
people to communicate with others whether on written or spoken.
Because reading is the important skill, the students are expected to read
various texts to get information or to have knowledge. Harmer (2003:208) states
that students sometimes have low expectation in reading. The students think that
understanding the passage is difficult and when the teacher in the past given them
a text that they have no interest, then they would predict that the future activities
of reading to be boring.
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Reading means getting out of the text as possible the message that the
writer puts into it (Nuttal, 1980:5). It means in reading, students not only read a
text but they also have to comprehend that text. But in fact, based on my
experience during conducting PPL program, it was found that many students still
find reading comprehension difficult although they have done it for several years.
They do not know how to comprehend an English text and get the message from
it. Consequently, the students become bored and lazy. Moreover, reading
comprehension is not easy as most people think. Most people read a text without
comprehend it because they assume that reading is a task of little concern. So it
becomes a problem for the teacher in teaching reading English text in a classroom.
Based on the condition above, the teacher should make variations and a
suitable technique in teaching reading comprehension in order to increase the
students’ ability in reading comprehension. In this case the writer suggests that
teacher should use Directed Reading Thinking Activity (DRTA) technique which
is developed by Russell Stauffer (1969) to teach in reading comprehension. The
Directed Reading Thinking Activity directs students make predictions about the
text and then read the text to confirm the predictions. Burns et al (1984:311) state
that the DRTA is useful for improving students’ comprehension of selection
because the students are interacting with the material during reading.
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1.2. The Problem of the Study
Based on the previous discussion in the background of the study, a
research problem is formulated as the following: “Does the application of
b. The other researchers who want to search the best technique of reading
comprehension to improve the students’ achievement in reading
comprehension.
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CHAPTER II
REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE
2.1 Theoretical Framework
In conducting a research, some theories are needed to explain some
concepts which concern for the research. The theories should be made
clear because it is important to avoid misunderstanding of the terms used
in the discussion.
2.1.1 Reading
There are so many definitions of reading and a great variety of definitions
has been developed. This is partly because of the complexity of the reading act,
which includes two major components – a process and a product. By process we
mean a method, a movement toward an end that is accomplished by going through
all the necessary steps. A product is the consequences of utilizing certain aspects
of process in appropriate sequence. The product of reading is the communication
of thoughts and emotions by the writer to the reader.
Hornby (1974:699) states reading means an action of a person who reads.
If it connected with the study, reading is meant the action of students read
textbook in reading comprehension class to understand what is printed in the
paper. Then Nuttal (1980:5) defines reading means getting out of the text as
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possible the message that the writer puts into it. It means that in this process, the
reader tries to recreate the meaning which the writer intended.
Reading is an essential skill for all the students at all levels. This is in fact
the main goal of learning in school and University. Knowledge comes or is
derived from reading. When a student understands what he reads, he has already
acquired from some knowledge. The knowledge is later expanded by reading
another text. Students learn to read and learn better by reading. Students can read
based on what is their interest. It is difficult for the students who are very lazy to
read and it is difficult for them to achieve the goal of the study.
Reading is a skill that must be developed. Reading can also be defined as a
way to get information from the text and from an interpretation of that
information. In other words, reading is the ability to draw meaning from the
printed page and interpret this information appropriately (Grabe & Stoller,
2002:9).
2.1.1.2 Reading Comprehension
The first point to be made about the reading process is reading
comprehension. In reading comprehension, readers must be able to get the main
idea of the text. Burns et al (1984) have pointed out that reading comprehension
is at once a unitary process and a set of discrete process. While Grabe and Stoller
(2002) state that reading comprehension is an extraordinary feat of balancing and
coordinating many abilities in a very complex and rapid set of routines that
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makes comprehension seemingly effortless and enjoyable activity to fluent
readers. In other words, reading comprehension is an achievement to use many
abilities to comprehend or understand text easily.
Reading comprehension involves more knowledge of structure and
vocabulary. For most second language learners who are already literate in a
previous language, reading comprehension is primarily a matter of developing
appropriate, efficient comprehension strategies.
From the statements, it is clearly that reading comprehension is important
thing in reading. It can also be concluded that reading is the first step for someone
to get the meaning of the text, while the second step is comprehension, which
requires more effort of the reader to interpret and get deeper understanding.
2.1.2.2. Level of Comprehension
According to Burns et al (1984) there are four levels of comprehension,
they are:
2.1.1.2.1. Literal Reading
Reading for literal comprehension involves acquiring information that is
directly stated in a selection, is important and also prerequisite for higher-level
understanding. In literal reading, the main ideas are directly stated. Every one who
wants to obtain a higher-level of reading must master literal reading at first.
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2.1.1.2.2. Interpretive Reading
Interpretive reading is the process of deriving ideas that are implied. In
other words, the ideas are not stated directly. There are some skills for
interpretative reading, they are:
a) Finding main ideas of passages in which the main idea are not directly
stated.
b) Finding cause and effect relationships when they are not directly stated.
c) Determining referents of pronouns and adverbs
d) Inferring omitted words
e) Knowing the author’s purpose in writing
f) Drawing conclusions
g) Detecting moods.
2.1.1.2.3. Critical Reading
In critical reading, readers evaluate written material, compare the ideas
found in the materials with his/her previous knowledge and draw conclusions
appropriately. The readers must be able to grasp implied ideas, and make good
decisions on the materials that he/she has read. To foster critical reading skills in
the classroom, teacher must give students many chances to ask questions.
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2.1.1.2.4. Creative Reading
In creative reading, students must be able to think and to use their
imaginations. From the text that they have read, they must be able to produce new
ideas, and develop new insight. Creative reader must understand cause and effect
relationships in a text although it is not stated directly.
2.1.2 Experience Text Relationship Method
According to Abisamra (2006), experience text relationship method is a
teaching procedure of advance speculative organization on the teacher's part, who
selects texts in relation to what he thinks may interest his group of learners. The
basic element of the ETR method is discussion of a text and topics related to the
text, especially students' own experiences.
The ETR lesson provides opportunities for the children to explore many
dimensions of the story and to integrate features of it with their existing prior
knowledge.
2.1.2.1 The Advantages of Directed Reading Thinking Activity
The Advantages of using Directed Reading Thinking Activity (DRTA)
technique are:
It encourages students to be active and thoughtful readers.
It develops students’ prediction skills
It activates students' prior knowledge.
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It teaches students to monitor their understanding of the text as they're
reading.
It helps strengthen reading and critical thinking skills.
2.1.2.2 The Procedure of Directed Reading Thinking Activity
The procedures of using Directed Reading Thinking Activity technique is
described as following:
1. Choose a text. It can be a fiction or nonfiction text.
2. Activate students’ prior knowledge. Have students read the title of the text
or tell them the topic of the text. Ask students to brainstorm a list of ideas
that come to their mind when see and hear about the title or topic. Wrote
those ideas on the board
3. Have students make predictions about what they will read about in the
text. Use all available clues, such as picture, charts, table of contents.
4. Have students read a section of the text. Either have a volunteer student to
read aloud or have students real silently. The teacher should determine
stopping points when the students are reading to themselves.
5. Ask students to confirm or revise prior prediction and make new
predictions. Students should be encouraged to explain what is in the text
that makes them to confirm or revise their prior predictions and what
makes them to make new predictions.
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6. Have students to combine what they have read and the importance of it to
their lives. Teacher can address the question, “How is what was learned in
the text important to the students’ lives?”
2.2. Conceptual Framework
Teaching learning English in high school demands on the active
participation of the students as the subject of four-skill implementation, listening,
speaking, writing and also reading. The success of teaching reading is influenced
by the technique that is used in teaching process. That is why the teacher should
select the appropriate technique in teaching. In this study, Directed Reading
Thinking Activity will be chosen as one of the appropriate technique in teaching
reading. It can improve student’s reading comprehension because the students are
interacting with the material during reading and it also activates the students’
reading background knowledge.
By applying Directed Reading Thinking Activity, it is expected could
significantly improve the students’ reading comprehension and also the students
will realize that reading is an interesting activity and easier to understand.
2.3 Hypothesis
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The research hypothesis is formulated as follows:
Ho = “There is no significant effect of applying Directed Reading Thinking
Activity technique on the students’ reading comprehension”
Ha = “There is a significant effect of applying Directed Reading Thinking
Activity technique on the students’ reading comprehension”.
REFERENCES
Abisamara, N. (2006). Teaching Second Language Reading from an Interactive Perspective. Available at http://nadabs.tripod.com/ Accessed on March 25, 2012
Brown, H.D. 2001. Teaching by Principles: An Interactive Approach to Language Pedagogy Second Edition. San Fransisco: Addison Wesley Longman
Burns, et al. 1984. Teaching Readings In Today’s Elementary School. New Jersey: Houghton Mifflin Company.
El-Koumy, A.(2004). Metacognition and Reading Comprehension Current Research trends in Theory and Research. Available at http://www.eric.ed.gov/ Accessed on March 25, 2012
Grabe, William and Stoller, Fredricka L. 2002. Teaching and Researching Reading. Great Britain. Pearson Education.
Harmer, Jeremy. 2003. The Practice of English Language teaching (3rd ed). Harlow: Pearson Education Limited
Hornby, A.S. 1974. Oxford Advanced Learners Dictionaryof Current English (3rd