IMPROVING STUDENTS’ READING COMPREHENSION USING JIGSAW (A Classroom Action Research at the Eighth Grade of SMP Islam Diponegoro Surakarta in the Academic Year of 2012/2013)

Oleh :
Agustina Dwi Ratnaningsih - X2210001 - Fak. KIP

The objectives the research are (1) to describe how jigsaw improves the students? reading comprehension at eighth grade of SMP Islam Diponegoro Surakarta and (2) to describe how jigsaw can improve class situation. In the pre research, the students had difficulties in identifying main idea, identifying supporting detail, guessing meaning of new words, identifying communicative purpose of text, identifying cohesive device, and identifying reference. The research was conducted at SMP Islam Diponegoro Surakarta from April to May 2012. The subject of research was the eighth grade students consisting 27 students. It was a classroom action research. The research took two cycles. Each cycle had four steps: planning, action, observation, and reflection. Cycle 1 had four meetings and cycle 2 had three meetings. The research finding shows that jigsaw could overcome the students? difficulties in reading comprehension; they could identify main idea, identify , identifying explicit and implicit meaning, guess meaning of new words, identify communicative purpose of text, identify cohesive device, and identify reference. Besides solving the students? difficulties, jigsaw improved the class situation. Before conducting jigsaw technique in teaching process, the students? motivation was low and after doing action their motivation improved. Based on pre-observation, most of students were passive. After using jigsaw technique, the students became more active and interactive during the teaching learning process. There was an improvement in the students? attitude. Finally, it can be concluded that Jigsaw can improve the students? reading comprehension and improve the class situation. Key words: reading comprehension, jigsaw, classroom action research