Improving students’ reading ability by using printed mass media ( A Classroom Action Research Conducted in the Eighth Grade Students of SMP N 3 Colomadu Karanganyar in 2008/2009 Academic Year)

Oleh :
Nur Hikmah Laila - K2204041 - Fak. KIP

ABSTRACT The objective of this research is to improve students’ reading comprehension ability by using text from magazines. Related to the purpose of the study, the research design used in this study was action research. The subject of the study was the students of class VIII G of SMP N 3 Colomadu in the academic year 2008/2009. There were 36 students as the sample. The action research was conducted from February to March 2009. In this research, the researcher taught reading by using texts from magazines. She select the texts from FUN, C’nS, HELLO, and HighEndTeen magazines which are appropriate with the materials presented in the syllabus. The researcher conducted two cycles of action. The result of the action showed that after the researcher conducted the actions, the students’ reading comprehension ability improved as shown in the result of both the observation on the students activity during the actions and their pre-test and post-test mean scores. From the observation, the researcher found that during the action, the students have shown their improvement such as they are able to comprehend the text well, the situation of the teaching and learning process became more joyful and interesting, the students also didn’t reluctant to open their dictionary, and all of the students were involved in the teaching and learning process. From the reading comprehension test, the students pre-test mean score was 5.8, increasing to 6.5 in the first post-test and increasing again to 7.6 in the final post-test. So, it can be concluded that teaching reading by using texts from magazines can improve the students’ reading ability.