USING SQ3R TO IMPROVE STUDENTS’ PERFORMANCE IN READING COMPREHENSION An Experimental Study at SMAN 7 Banda Aceh 1. Background of Study Reading is an important skill in learning a language besides listening, speaking, and writing. It is not only about how to recognize words, but also how to understand the writer’s ideas and perception of his or her writing. According to Henderson (2007: 3).“Reading is defined as the interpretation of graphic symbols, which implies that the reader must be able to make association with appropriate meaning. ” Reading also can be defined as the way to comprehend text and its appropriate meaning. The students read a text then they try to find the meaning of each sentence appropriate to the context. Reading is an English language skill that is difficult to learn but it is a key to knowledge. By reading, students get information, enjoyment, and can also enlarge their knowledge. Reading is important in teaching and learning activities to understand the purpose of the study. 1
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USING SQ3R TO IMPROVE STUDENTS’ PERFORMANCE IN READING COMPREHENSION
An Experimental Study at SMAN 7 Banda Aceh
1. Background of Study
Reading is an important skill in learning a language besides listening,
speaking, and writing. It is not only about how to recognize words, but also how to
understand the writer’s ideas and perception of his or her writing. According to
Henderson (2007: 3).“Reading is defined as the interpretation of graphic symbols,
which implies that the reader must be able to make association with appropriate
meaning.” Reading also can be defined as the way to comprehend text and its
appropriate meaning. The students read a text then they try to find the meaning of
each sentence appropriate to the context. Reading is an English language skill that is
difficult to learn but it is a key to knowledge. By reading, students get information,
enjoyment, and can also enlarge their knowledge. Reading is important in teaching
and learning activities to understand the purpose of the study. Therefore, reading is a
significant skill that must be developed by the students in senior high school.
Reading comprehension is the process of understanding ideas from text to the
reader’s mind. Reading without comprehension is nonsense and useless.
Comprehension is how the students understand and get the messages from the printed
words.
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Furthermore, Ducther (1990:25), stated that “Reading is the process of
constructing meaning through the dynamic interaction among the reader’s existing
knowledge, the information suggested by the text and the context of the reading
situation”. A reader must be able to recognize words and understand ideas in detail.
Knowledge comes from both understanding the words and sentence meaning.
Thus, there are some techniques to improve the students’ performance in
reading comprehension, such as reading aloud, drill and Survey, Question, Read,
Recite, and Review (SQ3R). In this case, the writer is interested in discussing about
the SQ3R technique to improve students’ performance in reading comprehension.
This technique gives the students some systematic steps to improve their
understanding of the reading activity.
SQ3R is a five steps technique to assist students in reading for comprehension
or study purposes. SQ3R stands for Survey, Question, Read, Recite, and Review; it is
a useful technique for extracting the maximum amount of benefit from reading
activity.
By using the SQ3R technique, the writer hopes that the students can improve
their reading performance with a good understanding about the text or material that
they read. SQ3R helps the students to have a good comprehension in reading by
providing several steps. It includes surveying or previewing the material before
actually beginning reading and developing questions that the reader feels the writer
may pose or answer. In doing these two steps before actually beginning reading, the
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reader begins to form some general ideas on the subject or topic to be read and begins
guessing at the writer's intent. Some studies show that these two steps help to engage
the reader's interest in the material and help to improve comprehension of material.
As concluded by Mayer (1999) “There is a need for further research to confirm a
positive relationship between SQ3R and reading comprehension”. So that is why the
writer wants to conduct the research entitled “Using SQ3R in Improving Students’
Performance in Reading comprehension.”
2. Statement of Problem
In the teaching learning process the students always focus on searching or
finding a word meaning, not on understanding the whole reading text. The common
teaching learning process seems monotonous, the students tend to read and translate
the text without comprehending it. That process makes the students bored. So that is
why SQ3R will be tested to find out whether it makes students eager to read.
3. Objective and Significance of Study
The aim of this research is to find out whether the SQ3R technique can
improve students’ performance in reading comprehension.
If successful, this research will give teachers a better technique for teaching
reading comprehension. The teacher can apply the SQ3R technique to improve the
students’ performance in reading comprehension and improve students’ knowledge
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about reading comprehension. For students, it will help them to understand reading
texts and improve their study skills.
4. Scope Study
This research focuses on using SQ3R to improve students’ performance in
reading comprehension. In this study, the writer focuses on the students’ reading
performance of second grade students at senior high school. The study concerns about
literal and inferential comprehension. Literal comprehension is the information that is
explicitly stated within the text while inferential comprehension is the implicit
information of the reading text.
5. Literature Review
5.1. Reading
According to Rumelhart (1997) as quoted by Aeober& Mary (2007: 5) “In the
most general term we may say that reading involve the reader, the text, and the
interaction between reader and text”. Reading is the most important skill in learning
a language. The students can read to gain knowledge and improve their ideas. They
can enhance their performance in understanding the reading text as well.
5.2. Reading Comprehension
Reading is not only spelling words in written material, but also understanding
what we read; we have to get the meaning and information from this activity. Wise
(2007:1) stated that “Reading comprehension is the process of understanding and
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constructing meaning from a piece of text”. This activity is called reading
comprehension.
5.3. SQ3R
According to Fleming (2009:9) “SQ3R is an active reading technique that is
designed to help the readers get a fuller understanding of their reading materials”.
The readers will need to keep a pen and some paper on hand to use this technique.
The SQ3R technique is one of the techniques in reading comprehension which helps
students to comprehend the material besides reading aloud and drill.
5.4. Performance
English Oxford Dictionary (2002) has defined that “Performance is the
language that a speaker or writer actually produces, as distinct from his or her
understanding of the language”. It means that the language is produced well by the
speaker. The American Heritage (2000:684) also stated that “Performance means the
act of doing something successfully; using knowledge as distinguished from merely
processing it”. In this study, performance is students’ proficiency in understanding
reading text.
6. Hypothesis
This research will assess the process of using SQ3R to improve students’
performance in reading comprehension. The writer formulates the hypothesis as