STUDENTS’ DIFFICULTIES ON READING
COMPREHENSION AT THE EIGHT GRADE OF SMPN 6 SAROLANGUN
THESIS
By:
MUHAMMAD ARIF QURNIAWAN NIM. TE.141013
ENGLISH EDUCATION PROGRAM
TARBIYAH AND TEACHER TRAINING FACULTY THE STATE ISLAMIC UNIVERSITY
SULTHAN THAHA SAIFUDDIN JAMBI
2020
STUDENTS’ DIFFICULTIES ON READING
COMPREHENSION AT THE EIGHT GRADE OF SMPN 6 SAROLANGUN
THESIS
Submitted to fulfill one the requirements to obtain the Undergraduate Degree (S1) in English Education Program of Education Faculty of The State Islamic University of Sultan Thaha
Saifuddin Jambi
MUHAMMAD ARIF QURNIAWAN NIM. TE.141013
ENGLISH EDUCATION PROGRAM
TARBIYAH AND TEACHER TRAINING FACULTY THE STATE ISLAMIC UNIVERSITY
SULTHAN THAHA SAIFUDDIN JAMBI
2020
iii Advisor I : Habibuddin Ritonga, MA Advisor II : Uyun Nafi’ah, M.Pd
Adress : Faculty of Education and Teacher Training UIN STS Jambi
To, Dean of Education Faculty and Teacher Training UIN STS Jambi
In Jambi,
OFFICIAL NOTE Assalamu’alaikum, Wr.Wb.
After reading and fixing something necessary, we stated that thesis of Name : Muhammad Arif Qurniawan
NIM : TE 141013
Department : English Education Program
Title : Students’ Difficulties on Reading comprehension at the Eight Grade of SMPN 6 Sarolangun
Has been progressed to be the examined to fulfill the tasks and requirement to achieve under graduate degree (S1) at Education Faculty and Teacher Training of the State Islamic University of Sulthan Thaha Saifuddin Jambi, we assert the thesis can be accepted well.
Thus, we hope this thesis will be useful for education, religion and nation.
Wassalamu’alaikumwr.wb.
Advisor I Advisor II
Habibuddin Ritonga, MA. Uyun Nafi’ah, M.Pd.
NIP.19590612198703103 NIP. 198806272015032006
iv
Matter : Official memo
Attachment : -
The Dean Faculty of Education and Teacher Training The State Islamic University of Sulthan Thaha Saifuddin In Jambi
Assalamualaikum Wr.Wb.
After reading, giving guidance and making necessary correction, we agree that the thesis of:
Name : Muhammad Arif Qurniawan
Student’s ID : TE. 141013 Department : English Education
Title : Students’ Difficulties on Reading Comprehension At the Eight Grade of Smpn 6 Sarolangun
Could be submitted to Munaqasah exam as one of the requirements for the undergraduate degree (S1) in English Education Program Faculty of Education and Teacher Training the State Islamic University Sulthan Thaha Saifuddin Jambi. So, we submit it in order to be examined soon.
We would like to say thanks for attention.
Wassalamu’alaikum Wr.Wb.
Jambi, 14 May 2020 First Advisor
Habibuddin Ritonga, MA.
NIP.19590612198703103 KEMENTERIAN AGAMA
UNIVERSITAS ISLAM NEGERI SULTHAN THAHA SAIFUDDIN JAMBI
Jl. Jambi Ma. Bulian KM. 16 Sei. Duren Kec. Jaluko Kab. Muaro Jambi 36361, 36361, Jambi-Indonesia Telp/Fax : 0741 583183 – 584118. Web :
Web : https://uinjambi.ac.id, email : mail@uinjambi.ac.id
Document Code Form Code Date Valid Revision Number Page
THESIS AGREEMENT / FINAL TASK
v
Matter : Official memo
Attachment : -
The Dean Faculty of Education and Teacher Training The State Islamic University of Sulthan Thaha Saifuddin In Jambi
Assalamualaikum Wr.Wb.
After reading, giving guidance and making necessary correction, we agree that the thesis of:
Name : Muhammad Arif Qurniawan
Student’s ID : TE. 141013 Department : English Education
Title : Students’ Difficulties on Reading Comprehension At the Eight Grade of Smpn 6 Sarolangun
Could be submitted to Munaqasah exam as one of the requirements for the undergraduate degree (S1) in English Education Program Faculty of Education and Teacher Training the State Islamic University Sulthan Thaha Saifuddin Jambi. So, we submit it in order to be examined soon.
We would like to say thanks for attention.
Wassalamu’alaikum Wr.Wb.
Jambi, 28 April 2020 Second Advisor
Jl. Jambi Ma. Bulian KM. 16 Sei. Duren Kec. Jaluko Kab. Muaro Jambi 36361, 36361, Jambi-Indonesia Telp/Fax : 0741 583183 – 584118. Web :
Web : https://uinjambi.ac.id, email : mail@uinjambi.ac.id
Page
THESIS AGREEMENT / FINAL TASK
Uyun Nafi’ah, M.Pd.
NIP. 198806272015032006
vi
vii
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DEDICATION
In the name of Allah SWT for the blessing and the merciful, with the deep thanks and proud, Shalawat to Prophet Muhammad SAW his coming really change the
world.
Special Thanks to :
My parents, My lovely Father (Mr.Effendi) and my lovely mother (Mrs.Mariyam) who always give me everlasting love, motivation, suggestion, guidance and
especially financial from Primary until University.
My big family, my first brother (M.Fadhli Al Fajri) , my second brother (M.Alrofiqi) and my Sister (Nurul Hidayati). Who always pray for me, support.
Especially, my alm. Sister who always give me stronger motivation until she leave me.
My Best friends (Ade Riski, Abdul Rohim, Abdul Rohman, Amron, Ilham ) who have been always give me support, motivation and quality time to share
happiness and sadness with me and understand me.
Although, we are sometime different think but you are make me know what the meaning of true friendship.
My Classmate (English Education Department of A “2014”), Who never stop told me that time is everything to do this when we meet from first semester until the
last semester
May Allah Subhanahu Wata’ala bless us Aameen
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MOTTO
ۗ اًرْسُيِۗۗرْسُعْلاَۗۗعَمۗۗ نِا
“Surely, with hardship comes ease,"
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Alhamdulillah, Firstly, In the name of Allah, the most gracious and merciful, the lord of universe. Because of His blessings, the researcher could finish this thesis as one of the requirement for S1 degree in English Education Programme of Education and Teacher Training Faculty of the State Islamic University of SulthanThahaSaifuddin Jambi.
Secondly, peace and salutation always be given to our prophet Muhammad SAW who has guided us from the darkness into the lightness.
The researcher realizes that this thesis would have not been completed without the help, advice and guidance from many people. Therefore, in this opportunity the researcher would like to express thanks and gratitude to following parties for their contribution:
1. Prof. Dr. H. Su’aidi MA, Ph.D Rector of the StateIslamic University of Sulthan Thaha Saifuddin Jambi.
2. Dr. Hj. Fadlillah, M.Pd. as Dean of Faculty of Education and Teacher Training of The StateIslamic University of Sulthan Thaha Saifuddin Jambi 3. Wahyuni Fitria, M.Pd as the chif of English Education Program.
4. Habibuddin Ritonga, M.A as my first advisor and Uyun Nafi’ah, M.Pd as my second advisor.
5. All lecturers at English Education Program and all lecturers the Faculty of Education and Teacher Training of The StateIslamic University of Sulthan Thaha Saifuddin Jambi.
6. My big family who have me support and suggestion to the research to accolish this thesis.
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May Allah SWT always gives guidance and blessing to us. Amin Ya Rabbal Alamin.
Researcher,
Muhammad Arif Qurniawan NIM. TE.141013
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ABSTRAK
Muhammad Arif Qurniawan. 2020. Kesulitan siswa dalam pemahan membaca di kelas delapanh SMPN 6 Sarolangun. Skripsi, Pendidikan Bahasa Inggris, Fakultas Tarbiyah dan Keguruan, Universitas Islam Negeri Sulthan Thaha Saifuddin Jambi.
Penelitian ini adalah tentang analysis kesulitan siswa dalam pemahaman membaca di kelas delapan SMPN 6 Sarolangun. Tujuan dari penelitian ini adalah untuk mengetahui kesulitan siswa dalam pemahaman membaca. Penelitian ini menggunakan pendekatan kualitatif. Teknik dalam mengumpulkan data menggunakan pengamatan dan wawancara. Wawancara dengan 15 siswa yang mana 10 skor terendah dan 5 siswa dengan skor diatas KKM dalam latihannya.
Kemudian, data dianalisis dengan menggunakan deskriptif analisis. Hasil dari penelitian ini menunjukkan bahwa siswa: kurang dalam menguasai kosakata, tidak bisa memahami teknik dalam memahami bacaan, dan juga fasilitas di sekolah yang kurang. Dari wawancara, peneliti menemukan bahwa kesulitan utama siswa dipengaruhi oleh kelemahan meraka dalam menguasai berbagai kosakata. Oleh karena itu, siswa menjadi sulit dalam memahami teks bacaan. Untuk membantu mereka, dengan memberikan kesadaran pengeahuan kosakata kepada siswa dapat meningkatkan pemahaman bacaan mereka.
Kata kunci: Students’ Difficulties, Reading Comprehension.
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ABSTRACT
Muhammad Arif Qurniawan. 2020. Student’s difficulties on reading comprehension at eighth grade of SMPN 6 Sarolangun. Thesis, Department of English Education, Faculty of Education and Teacher Training, State Islamic University Sulthan Thaha Saifuddin Jambi..
The research is about analysis the student’s problem on reading comprehension at eighth grade of SMPN 6 Sarolangun. The aims of this research is to find out the student’s difficulties on reading comprehension. This research was used qualitative approach. The technique of collecting data used observation and interview. The interview with 10 students who had lower score and 5 students with scores above KKM in their practice on reading assignment. The data was analyzed by using analysis descriptive. The result of this research showed that the students: lack of vocabulary mastery, unable to understand the technique in reading comprehension, and also in the school lack of facilities. From the interview, the researcher found that the major of students’ difficulties influenced by their weaknesses in mastering a wide range of vocabulary. Therefore, the students become difficulties to comprehend reading texts. To help them, by giving awareness of vocabulary knowledge to the students can improves their reading comprehension.
Keywords: Students’ Difficulties, Reading Comprehension.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
PAGE COVER ... i
PAGE TITLE ... ii
OFFICIAL NOTE ... iii
AGREEMENT ... iv
APPROVAL ... vi
THESIS STATEMENT ... vii
DEDICATION... ... viii
MOTTO ... ix
ACKNOWLEDMENT ... x
ABSTRAK ... xii
ABSTRACT ... xiii
TABLE OF CONTENTS ... xiv
LIST OF TABLES ... xvi
CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION 1. Backgroud of Study.. ... 1
2. The Research of Problem.. ... 4
3. The Limitation of Research.. ... 4
4. The Formulation of Research.. ... 4
5. The Objective of Research.. ... 4
6. The Significance of Research.. ... 4
CHAPTER II REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE A. The Nature of Reading... 6
1. Definition of Reading………... 6
2. The Purpose of Reading……… 8
3. The Importance of Reading... 9
B. The Models of Reading Process………. 10
C. The Technique of Reading………. 11
D. Reading Comprehension.. ... 12
E. Reading Comprehension Aspects ... 16
F. Reading Comprehension Problem ... 17
G. Previous Related of the Research... 25
CHAPTER III RESEARCH METHOD A. Research Design .. ... 28
B. Research Site... 28
C. Subject of the Research………. 29
D. Kinds and Sources of Data………... 29
1. Kinds of Data ... 29
2. Sources of Data ... 29
E. Technique of Collecting Data ... 30
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E. Data Analysis ... 32 F. Triangulation ... 33 CHAPTER IV FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS
A. Research Findings………...………..35 1. Lack of Mastery Vocabulary………...…………..37 2. Unable to Understand the Technique in Reading
Comprehension………..37 3. Lack of Facilities………..………....39 B.Discussion………...……….41 CHAPTER V CONCLUSIONS AND SUGGESTIONS
A. Conclusions………43 .
B. Suggestions………..……...43 BIBLIOGRAPHY………...…45 APPENDICES...48 CURRICULUM VITAE ...
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LIST OF TABLES
Table 4.1 The Facilities of SMPN 6 arolangun……….….40
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CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION
A. Background of the Research
English is a global language in everywhere. Considering the importance of English as a global or international language, Indonesian government has recommended English as one of the foreign languages. In education, learnt at schools English has been chosen as one of the subject that should be mastered by the students in junior high schools, senior high schools, and universities.
English becomes the first foreign language and the compulsory subject in Secondary Schools (Depdiknas: 2003) as cited in Nur‟aeni (2011). It covers four basic language skills consisting of listening, speaking, reading and writing which have to be mastered by students. As one of the language skills, reading is considered as the most important skill in learning a foreign language (McDonough and Shaw‟s, 2003). Students can develop their knowledge and get a lot of types of information related to their studies through reading academic books, newspapers, magazines, advertising, and social media.
Reading is the basic skill that is closely related to other skills such as writing, speaking and listening. Students are required to read lots and understand the reading material in order to achieve better result in learning process. According to Grabe and Stoller (2002), reading can be taught as a way to draw information from text and to form an interpretation of that information. It means reading is also a gateway for students to get information and knowledge in educational process.
Reading comprehension is the ability to understand information in a text and interpret it appropriately what is meant by the text (Grabe and Stoller, 2002). It means that reading comprehension is the ability to read
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text, process and understand its meaning. An individual’s ability to understand text is influenced by their natures and skills, one of which is the ability to make inferences.
Reading comprehension is a skill that is critical in the educational success of all individuals. Without adequate reading comprehension is an important skill needed for all areas of school. Subjects, other than reading or literature, where comprehension skills are significantly important include science, social studies and math. In the area of science, research indicates that many students lack prior knowledge and reading strategies to generate inferences, thus, the students comprehend texts poorly. It s also found that students lack the specific reading strategies to generate inferences that aid in understanding of texts (Best, Rowe, Ozura, and McNamara, 2005).
Reading comprehension means how the students find the information from the text. Whenever students just read loudly but cannot understand the content of the text, it means they are failed. The readers must be able to comprehend the meaning of printed words. The main goal of learning reading comprehension is to make students understand the idea and the meaning of the passage.
Stauffer (1969) has mentioned the necessity to comprehend texts by stating reading means comprehending. In the sense, few would deny that the ability to comprehend English texts is probably one of the aspects which are most required by EFL students. However, in reality many EFL students are still struggling to overcome their reading comprehension problems.
Davoudi and Yousefi (2015) have listed a number of EFL learners’
reading difficulties and problems such as deficits in vocabulary knowledge and background knowledge, problems with grammatical knowledge and also poor reading strategies which is in fact very important to reduce the difficulties (Samad, Jannah& Fitriani,2017).
Based on the informal interview with students in the preliminary research at the eight grade of SMPN 6 Sarolangun, the researcher found the students’ difficulties in reading comprehension. Most of the students lack of vocabulary, it makes them had difficulties in finding the meaning of the words and the sentences. They also faced difficulties to understanding the content of the texts. Beside that, the researcher also saw that the teacher in learning process only giving task to translate the texts, it makes the students unable for sharing how does the technique in comprehending a text rightly. In fact, the students needed to know how does the technique to comprehending the text.
At the eight grade of SMPN 6 Sarolangun, the students also unable understanding in reading comprehension because they lack of knowledge how to apply the technique in reading skill such as skimming and scanning. Then, the students unable getting the message from the text because they confused to different and decide between main idea and topic sentence. They also difficult to get the general information , specific information, vocabulary and grammatical. Mostly of the students difficult to understand of the words and contexts of the sentence.
When English teacher is teaching does not giving the way or theory how to read the text rightly, so in teaching and learning process the students is difficult to identifying the text through their reading well.Its will made the students feel confious and lazy when comprehending reading texts.
In order to become better reader, the students need to be attentive of how they are reading and what can they do to improve their comprehension in reading a text, and one of them is having a strategy in reading. McNamara (2007:34) states that reading strategies are important to gain successful in comprehension. The reader also can be taught some strategies to improve their comprehension. The teacher should find a new
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attractive strategy that can attract students’ interest to read.
Based on the description above, the researcher intends to conduct research entitled “Students’ Difficulties on Reading Comprehension at the Eight Grade of SMPN 6 Sarolangun”.
B. The Research Focus
This research was focused on the analysis of Students’ Difficulties on Reading Comprehension. This research focuses on the eight grade students of SMPN 6 Sarolangun.
C. The Limitation of the Research
Because the researcher finds many problems in this research, the researcher only focus on Students’ Difficulties on Reading Comprehension at the eight grade of SMPN 6 Sarolangun.
D. The Formulation of Research
Based on the background of study above, the formulation of the problem in this research is : What are the Students’ Difficulties on Reading Comprehension at the Eight Grade of SMPN 6 Sarolangun?
E. The Objective of Research
The objective of this research was to find out what are the students’
Difficulties at the eight grade of SMPN 6 Sarolangun.
F. The Significance of Research
1. For researcher, this study is useful to know the students’ difficulties on reading comprehension.
2. This research is done in order to give significance contribution in teaching and learning processes through knowing the difficulty face by students in comprehending reading texts at the eight grade students of
SMPN 6 Sarolangun. It is hoped that will help the teachers to know the current students’ difficulties in comprehending reading text.
3. This research is useful as reference what the difficulties faced by students in reading comprehension.
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CHAPTER II
REVIEW OF THE RELATED LITERATURE
A. The Nature of Reading 1. Definition of Reading
Reading is one of English skills besides speaking, listening and writing. It is the way to understand written messages. According to Nuttal (1982) reading means a result of interaction between the writer‟ s mind and the reader‟s mind. It is the way how to the reader tries to get the message or the intended meaning from the writer. In this process, the reader tries to create the meanings intended by the writer, the reader can get the message, and the writer‟ s meaning sense.
Reading is one of the basic skills of language learning. It can not be separated from other skills of language learning besides writing, speaking and listening. Those skills must be learned all by English language learners. Reading skill can help improve other language skills. Generally, the skill of reading is developed in societies with literary taste, because it can lead to develop comprehension, enrich vocabulary
According to Elizabeth (as cited in Irawan 2010) reading is the process of constructing meaning from print and from other symbol.
Reading involves not just the print and the illustrations, but also readers bringing to the process their knowledge of the world and their past experiences. The reading process does not involve reading every single letter and that is why proofreading is so difficult: when you are very familiar with the ideas you hardly need to read the words at all.
Reading is interactive process as conversation because both reader and writer depend on each other. The interaction is complicated by the fact that the writer is absent at the time of reading, so he gets no feedback and cannot know what parts of her text will cause misunderstanding. He has to guess and shape the text accordingly, but as he never knows who the readers will be, he will never completely succeed Nuttal (1982). Based on explanation above, it‟s can be concluded that reading means a process between the readers to understanding the messaging that is written from the text.
According to Nuttall (as cited in Atikah, 2009), there are many kinds of definition about reading. Because of many people use the term reading in different ways. Nuttall classified reading in short definition into these groups:
a. Understand interpret meaning sense etc.
b. Decode decipher identify etc.
c. Articulate speak pronounce etc.
In reading, students should acquire the reading skill. They need tobe able to do a number of things with a reading text. Harmer (as cited in Kudsiyah 2009) said that the student should able to scan and skim a text. In scanning the text, they do not have to read every word and line to find detailed information. It means glancing rapidly through a text either to search for specific information. They will get general idea of what text is about by casting their eyes over its surface.
Reading is the most effective communication tool which is used throughout life, starting from the first class -average of five years-.
Information is an effective way to develop skills. Mental abilities such as comprehension, understanding, interpretation, judgment, analysis-synthesis making, assessment are developed with accurate, fast and continuous acquisition of reading skills. Life and civilization, largely based on the success of individual in the reading and writing.Reading, is one of the main sources which is feeding and improving the idea. To become aware
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of the individual's individuality depend on the winning of the reading power. Recognize words, to find the meaning of words to comprehend or to interpret the reading material, read quiet with the appropriate speed reading for purpose of reading and material, read aloud, read books effective, get pleasure from reading, reading to develop the ability to use to meet individual interests and needs, to maintain rich and varied experiences through reading, improve continuous reading interests, to understand current events, meet needs and requirements, intellectual needs, improve themselves, meeting individual and social requests and a hobby type of struggle can be ranked among the purposes of reading.
Reading is an interactive process n which readers construct a meaningful representation of a text using effective reading strategies.
Reading is a complex process of which a reader constructs, to some degree a message enclosed by a writer in graphical language.
By reading, people able to know many information because reading is a window of the world. Recently, most of information and knowledge are available in newspapers, magazines, book, etc. Books can contain tremendous ides and can be numerous sources of ideas. Generally, reading is a process to obtain much information.
Reading is central to the learning process. By reading activity, people may gain important information that is not presented by teachers in the classroom, and he added that the reader is an active participant who has an important interpretive function in the reading process. It means that in the cognitive model, people as readers are more than passive participants who get information while an active text make itself and it is meanings known to them.
2. The Purpose of Reading
Reading should have a purpose, because someone is reading with a purpose, tend to be more understanding than people who do not have goals. Because reading is an active activity, responding to the meaning of
what is read, then read the main goal is to search for and obtain information, including the content, understand the significance of reading.
Everyone has a different goal in reading. Set a goal to read the reader is influenced by many factors, including the needs, conditions and situations read. There are some of the opinion of experts on the purpose of reading:
According to White (2002) mentions the existence of three kinds of the purpose of reading:
1) To add insight or knowledge that is factual.
2) To increase the intellectual power.
3) To get pleasure or to get entertainment.
Based on definition above the purpose of reading is to obtain information from the text. Which includes the contents, understanding the meaning of reading. Its means, meaning (sense) is closely related to the purpose or we intensively in reading.
3. The Importance of Reading
Reading is one of the most important skills in learning language besides listening, speaking, and writing. According to Damian (2015), reading is an activity that involves greater level concentration and gives conversational skill to reader. It acquired a lot of knowledge. Besides, reading can improve students‟ attention span and comprehension. In general, there are two reasons why reading is important in daily life:
1) Reading will help to achieve some clear aim or information. It means that reading is one of the ways to get information.
2) Reading is needed for career, for study purposes, or simply for pleasure.
Teacher or students reads a book to improve their knowledge and people read comic, magazine, or novel for pleasure.
For language teaching, reading is useful for language acquisition. It can help to improve students’ English ability. Brown (1970) said that reading competence is important because it underlines success in all areas
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of study in high school, but it is essential to personal enrichment and development of intelligent citizenship. It means that increasing the ability of reading indicates a student's success in other subject areas. If their reading is good, others must be good too.
B. The Models of Reading Process
The models can be placed in one of the three categories: bottom-up, topdown, and interactive (Harris & Sipay, 1984:6). A discussion of the three models now follows.
1. Bottom-up Reading
Bottom-up models ot the reading process view reading as basically a translating, decoding, or encoding process. Here the reader starts with letters or larger units, and as he attends to them he begins to anticipate the words they spell. When the words are identified, they are decoded to inner speech from which the reader derives meaning in the same way as listening.
2. Top-down Reading Model
The students applying this type of reading model views reading as a linear process, although the process moves from the top, the higher the mental stages down to the text itself. The reading process is driven by the students mind at work on the text. Right after knowing the title and the author of the reading selection, the students’ mind is working, predicting the content of the reading selection, and while reading the text, his/self mind is still working, checking and conforming his/her prediction to finally correct the new information if it does not meet his/her expectations.
For this reason, this type of reading model is called reader-driven model.
3. Interactive Reading Model
In the interactive reading model there is a simultaneous impact between the bottom-up and top-down reading processes on
comprehension. Like the top-down model , interactive reading is a reader- driven model. It is not a linear but rather cyclical view of reading a text.
Textual information and students’ mental activities (including syntactic, lexical, semantic, and pragmatic information) have a simultaneous and equal impact on comprehension
C. The Technique of Reading 1. Skimming
Skimming is taking the most important information from the page without reading reading all the words. Gideon (2017) argues that skimming the text can be very helpful when the readers could get the gist of what is being written about, without all the details. When the reader skim certain page, they look for and apprehend upon words that appear to give the main meaning. Readers also skim when time is short or when they need to understand the general ideas but not the particulars of certain article or book. Skimming takes the notion of passing by some words to another level. In the act of skimming, the readers focus only on the substantial ideas and skip over the insignificant, marginal, and indegligible parts.
The technique of skimming is reading outline (overview) to get an of the contents of the book (Harmer:288). Method of rapidly moving the eyes over text with the purpose of getting only the main idea and a general overview of the content. Speed is often important when the you are reading. You may have a lot to read but not much time. For this kind of reading you usually do not want to know and remember everything. You only want to find out something about the book or article. According to Beatrice and Linda (1998) skimming is helpful when you want to find out quickly about the writer.
2. Scanning
Scanning is very fast reading. When you scan, you skip over many words. You look for some information as quickly as you can.
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Scanning is especially important for improving your reading. Many students try to read every word when they read, so they read very slowly. You often do not need to read every word. If you learn to scan, you can learn to read and understand faster.
Scanning is to read a text quickly in order to locate a specific item of information (Harmer: 288). We using scanning to discover certain details that we need. Scanning is strategy used by all readers to find relevant information in a text (Brown: 209). Assessment of scanning is carried out by presenting test-takers with a text an requiring rapid identification of relevant bits of information.
D. Reading Comprehension
Reading comprehension is one of the keys to get knowledge and information because in general a lot of knowledge and information which written and only by reading it we can get a knowledge of what has been written it either from books, newspaper, magazines or other print media.
Reading comprehension is a capability that must be owned by a person in obtaining information from a written text. This capability is not difficult for us to have if we read the text using the Indonesian language, and a little bit difficult if the text using a language other than Indonesia.
Example English language, of course we must have English language skills if you want to understand the reading text in English.
Reading comprehension is the goal instruction in reading and recognition is a means to help achieve that goal Choate (as cited Ade 2010). According to Hornby in Irawan (2010) reading comprehension means reading with the power of understanding of the printed symbols.
Alderson (2000: 28) defines reading is an enjoyable, intense, private activity in which the readers get much pleasure and can totally absorb the reading. According to Pang (2003:14) comprehension is the process of making sense of words, sentences and connected text.
Comprehension is the processes of deriving the meaning of one word to
another in a text. Readers typically make use of background knowledge, vocabulary, grammatical knowledge, experience with a text and other strategies to help them understand the written texts.
The main purpose of reading is comprehends the text she/he read.
According to Doyle (2004), comprehension is a progressive skill in attaching meaning beginning at the same level and proceeding to attaching meaning to an entire reading selection. All comprehension revolves around the reader’s ability in finding and determining main idea and topic sentence from the text.
Schumm (2006: 223) said that comprehension process involves an understanding of words and how these words are used to created meaning.
Comprehension entails three elements, they are:
1. The reader who is doing the comprehension
To comprehend the text, a reader must have a wide range of capacities and abilities. These included cognitive capacities, motivation and various types of knowledge.
2. The text that is to be comprehended
The features of the text have large effect on comprehension.
Comprehension does not occur by simply extracting meaning from the text. Texts can be easy or difficult, depending on the factors inherent in the text. When there are too many of these factors are not matched to the readers’ knowledge and experience, the text may be too difficult for optimal comprehension to occur.
3. The activity in which comprehension is a part
A reading activity involves one or more purposes, some operation to process the text at hand, and consequences of performing the activity. The consequences of reading are part of the activity. Some reading activities lead to an increase in the knowledge that the reader have. Another consequence of reading
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activities is finding out how to do something.
Rubbin (1993: 194) states that reading comprehension is a complex intellectual process involving a number of abilities. The two major involve word meanings and verbal reasoning. Without word meaning and verbal reasoning, there could be no reading comprehension; without reading comprehension, there would be no reading. From these concept basically, it can be understood that reading need comprehension. Reading and comprehension are regarded as one activity that cannot be separated. It means that reading comprehension is an activity to extract the meaning of written materials with fully understanding.
From the definitions above, reading comprehension can be concluded as the ability to find the stated or unstated writer’s idea in the text. The essence of reading comprehension is understanding all information delivered by the writer. It also refers to the ability to connect between the words in a text, to understand the ideas and the relationships between ideas conveyed in a text.
Reading comprehension is the process of making meaning from text. The goal, therefore, is to gain an overall understanding of what is described in the text rather than to obtain meaning from isolated words orsentences. In understanding read text information children develop mentalmodels, or representations of meaning of the text ideas during the reading
Reading comprehension is not just reading with aloud voice but reading is established to understand the meaning of word, sentence, and paragraph as well as sense relationship among the ideas (Simanjuntak, 2003: 4). Reading comprehension is also simply known as a kind of thinking process which requires the reader to make inferences from the text.
Reading is a developmental process. A reader starts reading to develop the basic skill of language learning and then gradually reading acquires complexities. Briefly speaking a reader starts from the simple and
goes to the complex which means from the literal level to the level of appreciation. According to a commonly acknowledged view there are three levels of comprehension. They are as under:
1. Literal Level 2. Interpretation Level 3. Critical Level
In the light of the above view regarding the levels of comprehension an attempt is made to enlist the components of reading comprehension as under. It should, however, be clarified that the list offered here is not complete or final. In view of local circumstances and situations, minor changes can be had. Simanjuntak(2003) if a sincere attempt is made for proper development of reading comprehension, the pupil will be able to perform such activities as mentioned below:
1. To recognize the meaning of the printed words.
2. To follow the instructions and act accordingly.
3. To answer the questions asked on the material read.
4. To arrange events and thoughts in a proper sequence.
5. To understand the meaning of words in the context of sentence.
6. To find out the central idea of the paragraph, 7. To draw inference from the material read.
8. To correlate the present reading material with the past experiences.
9. To understand the motive of the author.
10. To supply a proper title to the material read.
11. To answer questions set on the maps, charts, graphs and tables.
12. To understand the relation between the various thoughts.
13. To express the details of the material read in a concise way.
14. To translate the material read.
15. To differentiate between facts and propaganda.
16. To expand the thoughts or ideas in one's own language.
17. To interpret the reading material with reference to one's experiences.
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18. To assimilate thoughts and concepts and produce them as and when needed.
19. To compare and contrast various reading materials.
20. To draw judicious conclusions.
21. To generalise from one's experiences.
A superficial look at the above list of components reveals that they are in a hierarchial order as already discussed in the preceding paragraphs.
From the component a discussed above it can be determined that reading comprehension can be increased step by step and in accordance with the reader's.
Reading comprehension is an active process, directed by intentional thinking that allows young readers to make connections between their thinking processes, the textual content, and their own knowledge, expectations, and purposes for reading.
E. Reading Comprehension Aspects
According to Nuttal (1982), there are five aspects of reading comprehension which the students should comprehend a text well, such as determining main idea, locating reference, making inference, detail information, and the understanding vocabulary. These aspects are regards as difficulties that the students encounter in comprehending the text.
1. Determining Main Idea
The main idea is a statement that tells the author’s point about the topic. According to Longan (2002), said that finding main idea is a key to understand a paragraph or short selection. The main idea is usually located in a sentence, it is usually the first sentence but it can be in the middle or in the last sentence (Vener, 2002). Therefore, this can make the main idea more difficult to find. The students may get confused to see what the main idea of a passage is, and where the main idea is located.
2. Locating Reference
Reference is antecedent of a pronoun. The antecedent is a word or phrase to which a pronoun refers (Sharpe, 2005). In identifying reference, the students are expected to understand for what the pronouns in the sentences are used such as the pronouns that are used to show people, place, or situation.
3. Understanding Vocabulary
The student expands their knowledge of vocabulary while he is reading a passage, such as by finding out new words meaning in dictionary and guessing the meaning from the context. Context helps students making a general prediction about the meaning (Sharpe, 2005). It means that making prediction from the context will help students understand the meaning of a passage without stopping looks up every new word in a dictionary. In fact, one of the problems readers have difficulties in understanding material is that they have lack of vocabularies.
4. Making Inference
In making of inference, the students are expected to comprehend the text to find the conclusion of the statements in the text. Kopitski (2007) stated that readers need to practice combining clues from the text with their background knowledge in order to make inferences. It means that the clues in the text will help students to build assumption and draw conclusion.
5. Detail Information
The last type of question that is usually found in reading test is detail question or information. This question used to check students ability to understand material that is directly stated in the text.
F. Reading Comprehension Problem
To comprehend a text, Westwood (2001: 31) argues that readers must use information they already possess to filter, interpret, organize and
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reflect upon the incoming information they get from the text. He think that efficient interpretation of the text involves a combination of word recognition skill, linking of new information to prior knowledge, and application of appropriate strategies such as locating the main idea, making connections, questioning, inferring and predicting. Therefore, comprehending the English reading text is not an easy thing, so that is why there are many students find difficulties in comprehending the English text.
Reading difficulty refers to problem associated with reading and it was causing to fall behind in terms of reading requirements within the classroom (Oberholzer, 2005). It means that reading difficulty is the problems that are faced by the students in comprehending the text. This problem can have negative effect on their study especially in their reading ability.
Moreover, Kuswidyastutik (2013) said that someone’s understanding of a thing can be measured by whether or not he was in answering questions related to it and the difficulty can be seen from the mistakes he did while working on the questions. The basic questions on the reading test is about the main idea, finding reference, understanding the difficult word and making inference based on the passage. The researcher considers that those questions are also the basic difficulties that are face by the students in comprehending the text.
According to Oakhill (1993) he shows that one general problem that less-skilled comprehends seems to have is making inferences from text. These difficulties include: (a) inferring information that is only implicit in a text; (b) making inferences to connect up the ideas in a text;
(c) inferring the meanings of particular words from context. Three studies discuss about the difficulties in reading comprehension. The above studies about inferring information that is only implicit in a text include main idea.
According to Wilawan (2012) found explicitly main idea is not a difficult reading task for many people due the fact that they can search for
main points of text at specific locations of paragraphs (i.e. the first, second or last sentence) but explicit included local main idea, it is Explicit connective has two types of text require readers to infer the underlying structure of the text, which is a difficult task for students. Determining implied main idea is much more difficult and can be problematic for most readers. Main idea comprehension, as noted earlier, is a difficult task which involves the simultaneous application of bottom-up, top-down.
Determining a main idea of a text is one of the most difficult tasks in reading comprehension. It is a complex process which concerns the application of variousreading strategies. Students have difficulty in comprehension, particularly in identifying main ideas and important details.
The main idea is generally stated in the topic sentences, which is often the first sentences in paragraph. The main idea is easier to identify when it is first or the last sentences in the paragraph. It is more difficult to find when it is located in the middle of a reading. And it is perhaps most difficult to identify when it is inferred and not actually stated. Inference making is understanding language, it is often necessary to make inferences to go beyond what is stated explicitly in the text or discourse to infer the intended message. Even very straightforward texts require inferences to be drawn. Therefore, if the reader does read in text, they will infer the text that they have understood. Besides, main idea is important in text, so that, main idea must look for firstly. After that, they do making inference in text.
Spivey (2011) shows that most all texts have one sentence within a paragraph or passage stating the author’s message, or main idea. The main idea can appear at the beginning, middle, or end of a paragraph or passage.
Finding the main idea becomes more difficult in the upper grades where the main idea may be explicit (a complete sentence taken directly from the text) or implied (summarized by evaluating thedetails in the text). The sentences in the text may have too much detail to pick one main idea or so
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little information that there is no obvious message.
The main idea helps readers recall important information. Locating the main idea helps the reader understand the points the writer is attempting to express. Identifying the relationship between these will improve comprehension.
Whorter writes in his book entitled “Topics, Main idea, and Topics sentences” State that the students learned earlier that the main idea of a paragraph is most important point. The main idea is also the most general statement the writer makes about the topic. In this brief paragraph, the main idea is expressed in the first sentence. This sentence, known as the topic sentence, is the most general statement in the paragraph. All the other sentences are specific details that explain this main idea. In addition, Williams noted the importance of identifying main ideas as essential to successful reading comprehension in terms of drawing inferences from text, studying effectively.
Main idea is important in reading comprehension because main idea is important information that tells more about the overall idea of a paragraph or section of a text and most paragraphs have a main idea that is either contained in general sentences or else suggested by several specificsentences and making inferences make the students difficulty in a text. So that way, if the students do not find the inferring information that is only implicit in a text included main idea, the students will difficult to read some books especially in reading comprehension.
According to Parera (2002: 95) there are types of difficulty in reading comprehension, as follow:
1. Illegible handwriting, print that is blurred or uncomfortably small, or lack of contrast between the words and the
background.
2. When the subject matter is outside the reader’s knowledge and experienced. In this case, it is possible for all the words of the text to be understand but for the whole not to make sense.
3. Presented by unfamiliar vocabulary. Some of the book written for junior school pupils, contains several words which are unlikely to be known by young children.
4. There may be grammatical difficulties in the text.
5. They overall of discourse organization may be unclear or unfamiliar.
6. Lack of facilities.
According to Burgmeler, Eldred, and Zimmerman (2007), the difficulty ofreading comprehension can devide; establishing a context, understanding words, putting words into sentence and the last using word in context. For faster reading with comprehension, you certainly should be able to make reading and study time a more meaningful valuable, productive and enjoyable experience (Culter, 2003:2).
According to Latulippe (1987) there are two groups of words that give problems on reading comprehension to students of a second language: references and connectives.
1. References. References are words or phrases that are used as substitutes for words or phrases used either before or (less often) after the reference in the reading material. They are used to avoid unnecessary repetition of words or phrases.
2. Connectives. Connectives are words that are used to link (connect) ideas together in some kind of relationship. Connectives can be used to signal a cause-expected result relationship in which the result follows logically from the cause.
According (Allaith: 2009), the importance of spelling is not limited to individuals whose first language is English, but to English language learners as well. Spelling supports reading because the two processes are reciprocally related and they both follow a similar course of acquisition (Ehri, 2000). Furthermore, spelling supports reading. This is
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because “spelling and text production in later grades will require that students can automatically and legibly write alphabet letters and match sounds in words to associated spelling patterns” (Ritchey, 2008). Spelling Spelling in the English language is very difficult because the English spelling system is based primarily on meaning rather than on sound (Budi, 2013).
According to Heilman (as cited in Atikah 2009 P. 22), there are five problems are identified from the student‟s problems in reading : a. Word attack
Some of the students had obvious word-attack problems; either the examiner had to supply words or the students mispronounced words or sometimes they sounded them out.
b. Fluency
Most of students read haltingly, in a monotone, and with many hesitations. The comprehension of students is weak when texts are read too slowly. Some researchers indicate that slow word recognition is related to poor sentence processing and that fast word recognition is correlated with better comprehension.
c. Syntactic Structure
The third reading problem that the children have is syntactic structure. The problems with syntactic structures can arise in two ways.
First, students‟ ability to understand syntactic structure when they are spoken does not guarantee that these same structures will be understood when they are read. Second, some syntactic structures are more frequent in speech than in print and are unfamiliar when encountered in print.
d. Word Meanings
Many students had difficulty with the meaning of some words.
Here, the number and difficulty of words are increase. The vocabulary
becomes more sophisticated, and word meaning becomes more of a problem. Some problems in teaching and learning reading skill that are faced by the teachers are language, topic and genre, comprehension tasks, and negative expectations.
e. Lack of concentration
Lack of concentration is another mentionable reason for students‟
poor reading because concentration is an important factor for a good and effective reading. Shaw (1959) states that comprehension of a text results from reading with concentration. But students, in most cases, cannot or do not concentrate properly while reading, or they cannot hold their attention for a long time due to their lack of practice and patience. The situation results in the frustration and unwillingness, and prevents them to read further.
According to Putri as cited in Irawan (2010) there are number of causes poor comprehension such as;
1. Lack of vocabulary knowledge.
2. Inappropriate reading strategies.
3. Reading speeds.
4. Factor associated with students boring activities in reading).
5. Text (of low interest materials).
6. Situation (uncomfortable situation towards learning).
7. Insufficient time spent in reading.
Difficulty is something that complicated to do (Richard 2007, as cited in Wahab 2012). It will be seen from students’ mistake or error learning process. In fact, many senior high school students often find the difficulties in reading comprehension. These difficulties result the student’s poor performance in reading test. Thus, from these factors arise some difficulties in reading comprehension.
Factors difficulties that faced by students divided into external and
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internal. Internal factor includes physics, intellectual, and psychological.
While external factors include family and school environments (Rahim, 2006). There are some internal factors that influence the students in reading comprehension that are generally found by the reader during reading, namely; difficulty in understanding long sentence and text, difficulty that is caused by limited background knowledge, difficulty in using reading strategies and difficulty in concentration (Fajar: 2009).
a. Difficulty in understanding long sentence
In a common problem that most of students finds difficulty in understanding the long sentence with complicated structure. It is supported by report of Barfield (1999) that shows almost 12 percent of students had difficulty in understanding long sentences in graded story and 20 percent in academic text. Therefore, the effect of this problem is the students who cannot comprehending long sentence they fail to understand the main idea presented in the text.
b. Difficulty in Using Reading Strategies
The students who lack of reading strategies often fails in understanding the text. The students who are not familiar with reading strategies such as skimming and scanning will feel down and frustrated because they lack of tool necessary to succeed in reading comprehension test (Duarte, 2005). There are characteristics of the students who lack in use of reading strategies. First, the students read word by word within the text, relying too heavily on their visual information, which greatly impedes their reading speed and hampers their reading comprehension. Second, the students spent a lot attention on detail with the result they often miss the main idea of the text. Third, they just focused too much attention on form of the expense meaning. Furthermore, the students who do not possess effective reading strategies may be difficulty to deal with reading comprehension test. (Mei-yu, 1998 as cited by Fajar, 2009).
a. Difficulty in Concentration
Difficulty in concentration during reading can be caused by a psychological factor. Bad concentration will lead the students fail to comprehend the text. It can be worse when the students do reading test.
Difficulty in concentration is another reason for students’ poor reading because concentration is an important factor for a good and effective reading. Shaw (1959) states that comprehension of a text results from reading with concentration. But students, in most cases, cannot or do not concentrate properly while reading.
According to Peter (2001), there are external factors that influence the students in reading comprehension are reader environment. The environment factors can also influence the students in mastering and in learning English. Home and school are the two kinds of learners’
environment that can influence their learning reading achievement.
a. House environment
It cannot be neglected that parents play important role in the home.
Freeman and Long (1990) stated that every students needs attention from their parents to reach their learning achievement. Since learning English is not the same as learning Indonesia, children’s need parents or his/her family attention to learn about English. Learning reading without family attention will make students feel difficult in learning. They can feel down if no one support them to learn English text.
b. School environment
The school environment also can be a cause of students learning difficulties in reading comprehension, such as school with lack of learning media. The lack of learning media such as English books, magazines or newspapers make reading learning process become ineffective and will be impeding students in understanding the material.
G. Previous Related of the Research
In this research there were three previous studies, which similar and
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differences to this present research. The three previous studies investigated about students‟ problems on reading.
The first research was conducted by Atikah (2009)”Analysis on the students‟ linguistic problems in reading comprehension”. Her paper reported the result of a research that the comprehension under the second grade students of madrasah tsanawiyah Baiturahmah in reading especially in linguistic problems, they are in vocabulary, structure and spelling is low. The participants of this research consisted of two classes with 27 and 30 students for each class. The technique of this research use Based on the qualitative data, the researcher used simple statistic analysis to process the data. This analysis is looking for proportion, percentage and ratio. This research used documentation, interview and test as the instruments. The finding of this research was linguistic difficulty under the students‟ comprehension in reading.
The second research has been done by Kudsiyah (2009) entitled:
“analysis of some causal factors of students‟ Problem in learning English”. Her paper reported the result of a study that the students have not felt yet the role of family in supporting, paying attention, guiding and monitoring the learning and the achievement of the students in learning English. This research used qualitative design. The participants this research consisted of 26 participants. Technique of data analysis is used to explain the information or data that were obtained, and the data can be comprehend by the writer or anybody who wants to know the result of the research and analyzing the data, the researcher used percentage formula to describe the data and then analyze them qualitatively, by giving some related theory to give more explanation. This research used observation and questionnaire as an instrument. The finding of this research was Factors causing students‟ English learning problem at second grade students of SMP Al-Inayah.
The Third from Yuhana (2013) with her research entitled “The Difficulties of Students in Studying Reading Comprehension at the First
Class of Private Islamic Junior High School Sa’adatuddiniyah Sarolangun. This study was used qualitative method. This study to find out what are the difficulties face by students in reading comprehension, the factors of difficulties faced by teacher in teaching reading, and the efforts of teachers to solve the problem in studying reading. She found that students less knowledge vocabulary and low motivation, the teacher less time in teaching and need improving facilities in learning.
language.
Overall, this study has the same topic with these related studies.
The differences between the present study and other studies could be attributed to some reasons. Firstly, the participants in the present study are 30 participants on eighth grade students in at SMPN 6 Sarolangun.
Secondly, many of the researchers who conducted the same topic separated problems from reading comprehension while the present study tries to merge it in order to serve a better understandings to the problems faced. Furthermore, this research used quantitative design that is seldom used by other researchers in the research site. The researcher chose quantitative because using questionnaire on survey research as instrument. These reasons in this research hopefully will be able to fill the gaps in reading problems. In brief, the reasons to conduct these reasons are clear and it is hoped to give new knowledge for students at Junior High School in the research site.
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CHAPTER III RESEARCH METHOD
A. Research Design
In this research, the researcher was used descriptive design with qualitative method. Descriptive design was used because in this research there was no treatment given to the students. Descriptive is a designed to obtain real information concerning to the current status of phenomenon (Yuhana, 2013). Sugiyono (2016) stated that qualitative research method is a research method used to examine the condition of natural object. It means that the use of students’ difficulties in comprehending reading texts were only described as what they were, without giving any treatment. In this research, the researcher was used qualitative method because only analysis based on the fact that had been found. The researcher only focuses on describing data of students’ problem on reading comprehension. As result, the researcher only would describe what are the students’ problems.
B. Research Site
The site of the research was at at SMPN 6 Sarolangun, Jambi Province. To get access to do this research was by asking the permission from the Headmaster.
C. Subject of the research
In collecting data, the research was conducted in SMPN 6 Sarolangun. The subject of this research was the grade eight student of SMPN 6 Sarolangun that consists of 30 students.The subject of this research was conducted at the problem students on reading comprehension of the eight grade at SMPN 6 Sarolangun. The researcher taken 10 students that had lower and 5 students that had above KKM ability on reading comprehension.
D. Kinds and Sources of Data 1. Kinds of Data
In this research, the researcher uses primary data and secondary data.
a.) Primary Data
Primary data is the data in form verbal or the words that is said with tongue, movement gesture or the behaviour that is done by the subject who believeable (Arikunto, 2013:22).
Sugiyono (2008, p.225) stated that primary data is the data which can give valuable information directly. In other word, the primary data is to give prominent data relate to problems of the research. For the primary data, the researcher was used the result of interview with the students at the eight grade of SMPN 6 Sarolagun.
The difficulties which were experienced by the students in reading comprehension, and was analyzed from the data.
b.) Secondary Data
According to Latief (2004, p.54) secondary data is a data taken from sources as documents, opinions, facilities and the structure of organization and geographical place of the research object.
Secondary data also the data that collected statistic biro magazine and other sources that secondary is getting from the second
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hand, third, and so on or no just the researcher find the explanation (Margono, 1996:26).
Here, the secondary data which was used the historical and geographical setting of SMPN 6 Sarolangun, the structure organization of SMPN 6 Sarolangun, and the teachers and the students themselves of SMPN 6 Sarolangun.
2. Sources of Data
The meaning of data sources research is where data can be found.
The researcher was collected the sources of data in this research from some sources. There was an observation both of students and teacher in learning and teaching process and then in the students’ reading in English subject at the eight grade of SMPN 6 Sarolangun. The result of interview as source from the students.
E. Technique of Data Collection
The data for this research is students‟ problems on reading comprehension at SMPN 6 Sarolangun. In this research, the writer collected data by using reading comprehension interview and observation as the instrument to collect the data.
1. Interview
Latief (2015) stated that interview is a data gathering instrument that involves direct verbal interaction between individuals. In addition interviews are used for researchers to know the things of the respondents more deeply. According to Sukardi (2003) interview is the process of communication interaction to collect information by way of question and answer researcher and respondent.
Interview was the process or the steps to gain the useful
