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THE STUDENT’S DIFFICULTIES IN READING
COMPREHENSION AT SECOND GRADE AT ISLAMIC SENIOR HIGH SCHOOL LABORATORIUM JAMBI
THESIS
SRI WAHYUNI NIM. TE.120 675
ENGLISH EDUCATION PROGRAM
FACULTY OF EDUCATION AND TEACHER TRAINING ISLAMIC UNIVERSITY OF SULTHAN THAHA SAIFUDDIN
JAMBI
2019
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THE STUDENT’S DIFFICULTIES IN READING
COMPREHENSION AT SECOND GRADE AT ISLAMIC SENIOR HIGH SCHOOL LABORATORIUM JAMBI
A THESIS
Submitted as partial fulfillment of the requirement to get Undergraduate Degree (S.1) in English Education
SRI WAHYUNI NIM. TE.120 675
ENGLISH EDUCATION PROGRAM
FACULTY OF EDUCATION AND TEACHER TRAINING ISLAMIC UNIVERSITY OF SULTHAN THAHA SAIFUDDIN
JAMBI
2019
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v Dedication
In the name of Allah SWT, for the blessing and merciful I Dedicate This Thesis Especially for:
1. Thanks to my beloved hero, of course hi is my father M. Saib and mother Marpu’ah, who have educated me, prayed and supported to finish the thesis and to be successful in the future. And thanks also to my father-in-law Saprudin Zuhri and my mother-in- law Isniar, for giving birth to an extraordinary child, and hi is the father of my beloved daughter.
2. My beloved brother Riko Alimurdani and for my lovely sister Nurul Atnayeni Ramzawati and Martini. Thank you so much for loving me. I hope that when I am at the worst point as a human, you will not go away.
3. For my beloved husband Rudi Yanto and my little princess NAYYARA WAHYUDIAN thank you dear, to have accompanied me in the process of completing this thesis.
4. I thank for my second family that are Racana Sulthan Thaha Dan Sri Soedewi Uin Sts Jambi we’re giving me good experience and learn about life. For my best friends (dedengkot gengs) Ramza, Titin, Rina, Reni, Parida, Ummi, Doni, Heri, Joko, syahrizal, Ansory, Arif. Thank you so much for supported me you are my spirit.
5. The last but not the least, for all my friends in PBI class (D) and especially English education program students of academic year 2012 and also all my friends whom I can’t mention whom i love. I say thanks for everything.
6. All my success today might not be gained without support, guidance and prayer.
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MOTTO
ِمي ِحَّرلا ِنمْحَّرلا ِللها ِمْسِب
In the name of God the Most Gracious the most Merciful
( ٦) اًرْسُي ِرْسُعْلا َعَم َّنِإ (٥) اًرْسُي ِرْسُعْلا َّنِإَف َعَم
(٦-٥: حارشنلا ةروس)
(5) Verily, along eith every hardship is relief.
(6) Verily, along with every hardship is relief (ie, there is one hardship with two reliefs, so one hardship cannot overcome two reliefs).
(Translated By Dr. Muhammad Taqi-Ud-Dip and Al-Hilali, Ph.d, 199, The Noble QUR’AN. Darussalam: Riyadh, Saudi Arabia)
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Alhamdulillahirrobbil’alamin, thanks to Allah SWT, due to his blessing and guidance,
the writer could finish writing this thesis. The goal of this thesis is as partial requirement for the Undergraduate Degree (S1) in English Education Program Faculty of Education and Teacher Training UIN Sulthan Thaha Saifuddin Jambi. This thesis which is entitled:
“The Student’s Difficulties in Reading Comprehension at Second Grade at Islmic Senior High School Laboratorium Jambi” shalawat and Salam to our prophet Muhammad SAW who brings us from the darkness into the lightness as better life today many people have given remarkable help me. They are my great inspiration in teaching field. Next, this success would not be attained without supports, guidance, help, encourage from individual and institution.
The researcher would like to say thank to:
1. Dr. H. Hadri Hasan MA, the Rector of UIN Sulthan Thaha Saifuddin Jambi.
2. Dr. H. Suaidi, MA, Ph.D. Dr. Hidayat, M.Pd. and Dr.Hj. Fadhillah Husean. M.Pd as vice rektor’s I, II and III of UIN Sulthan Thaha Saifuddin Jambi.
3. Dra. Hj. Armida, M.Pd as the Dean of Faculty of Education and Teacher Training of UIN Sulthan Thaha Saifuddin Jambi.
4. Dr. H. Lukman Hakim, M.Pd as the first vice Dean of Faculty of Education and Teacher Training Zawaki Afdal Jamil, M.Pd as the second vice Dean of Faculty of Education and Teacher Training, and Dr. Kemas Imran, M.Pd.I as the Third vice Dean of Faculty Education and Teacher Training.
5. Amalia Nurhasanah, S.Pd., M.Hum as the chairwoman of English Education Program 6. Drs. Habibudin Ritonga, MA as the first advisor who has given a lot input such as
correction, opinion, and other things which is useful to the script writer in the process of writing this thesis. Dr. Faurina Anastasia, SS, M.Hum as the second advisor for
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ix ABSTRAK Nama : Sri Wahyuni
Jurusan : Pendidikan Bahasa Inggris
Judul : The Student’s Difficulties of Reading Comprehension at Second Grade ofIslamic Senior High School Laboratirium Jambi.
Penelitian ini berfokus pada kesulitan-kesulitan yang dihadapi oleh sekolah menengah atas Laboratorium Jambi dalam pemahaman membaca. Tujuan dari penelitian ini adalah untuk mengetahui kesulitan yang dihadapi oleh siswa di kelas dua sekolah menengah atas Laboratorium Jambi. Metode penelitian adalah penelitian kualitatif deskriptif. Data dikumpulkan melalui observasi dokumentasi sebagai instrumen metode pengumpulan data menggunakan teknik total sampling. Hasil dokumentasi menunjukkan bahwa mayoritas penelitian ini, menemukan kesulitan termasuk menjawab ide utama, membuat inferensi, dan menemukan pertanyaan referensi. Aspek yang paling sulit yang dihadapi oleh siswa di kelas dua SMA Jambi Laboratorium adalah menemukan pertanyaan ide utama, karena ide utama yang terletak sulit ditemukan. Selain itu, berdasarkan tanggapan siswa dalam menjawab pertanyaan guru, mereka sebagian besar mendapat kesulitan dalam memahami kosa kata, penguasaan tata bahasa yang buruk, kesulitan dalam memahami kalimat yang panjang, kurangnya pembelajaran media, kurang dukungan dari keluarga, kurangnya pengetahuan tentang strategi dalam pemahaman membaca. Kemudian, para peneliti mengamati kondisi siswa pada saat belajar bahasa Inggris terutama membaca untuk mengetahui kesulitan apa yang dialami siswa dalam membaca pemahaman teks bahasa Inggris. Akibatnya, kosakata adalah faktor dominan bagi siswa yang merupakan pemahaman membaca siswa dalam kesulitan. Kemudian peneliti mengamati aktivitas belajar siswa di kelas.
Kata kunci: Kesulitan Siswa dalam Pemahaman Membaca.
x ABSTRACT Name : Sri Wahyuni
Major : English Education Program
Title : The Student’s Difficulties of Reading Comprehension at Second Grade of Islamic Senior High School Laboratorium Jambi.
This research focuses on the difficulties faced by the senior high school Laboratorium Jambi in reading comprehension. The purpose of the research was to find out the difficulties faced by the student’s in second grade senior high school Laboratorium Jambi. The method research was descriptive qualitative research. The data collected through documentation observation as the instrument data collection methods used the technique of total sampling. The result of the documntation showed that the majority of this research, found difficulties including answering main idea, making inference, and locating reference questions. The most difficult aspect that encountered by the students at second grade of senior high school Laboratorium Jambi was finding main idea questions, because the located main idea was difficult to find. In addition, based on the students’ responses in aanswering teachers’ question, they mostly got difficulties in understanding vocabulary, poor mastery of grammar, the difficulty in understanding long sentences, lack of media learning, less support from the family, lack of knowledge of strategies in reading comprehension. Then, the researchers observed the condition of students at a time when language learning English especially reading to know what kind of difficulties students in reading comprehension of English text. As a result, the vocabulary is the dominant factor for a student which is the reading comprehension of students in difficulty. Then researcher observing students activity learning in classroom
Keywords: Students’ Difficulties in Reading Comprehension.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS THESIS COVER
OFFICIAL NOTE
SIDANG MUNAQASYAH-EXAMINER SIGNATURE
APPROVED AND ACCEPTANCE ……… i
ORIGINALITY THESIS STATEMENT ……… ii
DEDICATION ……… iii
MOTTO ……… iv
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ………. v
ABSTRAK ………... vi
ABSTRACT ……… vii
TABLE OF CONTENTS ……… viii
LIST OF TABLE ……… ix
CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTION A. Background ……… 1
B. Limitation of the Research ………... 5
C. The Formulation of the Research……… 5
D. The Purpose of the Research ………. 5
E. Significant of the Research ………. 5
CHAPTER II: REVIEW OF THE RESEARCH A. Definition of Reading ………... 6
B. Reading Comprehension Strategies………... 8
C. Reading Comprehension Apect ………... 9
D. Reading Comprehension Challanges .………... 12
E. Reading Comprehension at Senior High School ……… 14
F. Reading Comprehension Theory ……… 17
CHAPTER III: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY A. Method and Research Design ……… 19
B. Setting and Subject of the Research ……… 19
1. Setting of the Research ………... 19
2. Subject of the Research ………. 19
C. Kind and Source of Data………. 20
1. Kind of Data ………... 20
a. Primary Data ………... 20
b. Secondary Data ………. 20
c. Source of Data ………... 20
D. Technique of Collecting Data ………... 21
1. Observation ………... 21
2. Test ……… 21
3. Document ………. 22
E. Technique of Data Analysis ……… 22
1. Data Reduction ……… 23
2. Data Display ………. 23
F. Conclusion Drawing ………... 23
G. Triangulation ……… 23
H. Schedule of the Research ……… 24
xii CHAPTER IV: FINDING AND DIDCUSSION
A. Reading finding ... ………… 26
B. Reasearch demography ... 31
C. The analysis of the test ... 33
D. Discussion ………. 34
CHAPTER V: CLOSING A. Conclusion ……… 37
B. Suggestion ………. 37
C. Closing ………. 38 REFERENCES
APPENDIX
DOCUMENTATION CONSULTATION CARD CURICULUM VITAE
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LIST OF TABLES
The schedule of the research ... 25
The table of the vocabulary test ... 29
The result of the test ………... 30
The facilities ... 31
1 CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION A. Background
In Indonesia, English is considered as the first foreign language and taught formally from junior high school up to university level. As the ultimate goal of English teaching in Indonesia is that graduates of the high school are able to increase their knowledge by reading English books and other written reading materials, and learning activities should be concreted on reading.
In English, there are four skills that should be mastered, they are listening, speaking, reading and writing. Reading is one of the skills that the students should be mastered in learning English. Reading skills become important in the education field.
This skill is needed to get information from the English sources. Therefore, the learners have to be able to read the sources effectively and efficiently. The fundamental goal of reading comprehension is knowing science concept and the language itself.
While reading activity, the students can get much information about anything.
For some students, reading is still a difficult activity. They have problems with this activity because they do not understand what they read exactly. They also do not comprehend the content of the text itself. Meanwhile, important, students have to master reading skill so that they can understand a whole text well.
Reading is not just translating word by word, so to say reading comprehension.
There are some people do not know the meaning of word in every sentences, but we can guess the meaning of the sentence. The Indonesians read English text to translate every word. They will stop reading if it encounters an unknown the word and open the dictionary. If they are asked to write down the meaning of a text in English, looks to be a bunch of words that are not clear meaning. Actually this is not only done by the junior and senior high school students, but also the other people of Indonesia (since English is not the first language). However, Indonesia people seem more difficult to change this habit.
Language is the basic component of communication that is used to make a relationship with other people. People use languages to express their thoughts, feelings, ideas and opinions with others. According to Sapir (1921:7) language is a purely human and non-instinctive method for communicating ideas, emotions, and desires by means of a system of voluntarily produced symbols. Language is very important to learn. Without
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language we cannot communicate with others to share knowledge, culture, education and many things in this world.
English is one of language that is known as an international language. It means that people use it to interact with others around the world. English language is commonly accepted as an active universal language in the world. English in Indonesia is as a foreign language taught at formal education started from kindergarten to universities. An English teacher has to equip students with four language skills such as listening, speaking, reading and writing. In science-technology, education, business, sport and all aspects in life people always use English. It is proved that English is very useful for people to master in this modern era.
According to Gimson (1980), “Language is a system of conventional signals used for communication by a whole community”. Communication is an activity between two or more people in making interaction to each other by using language. Every human being has a language. It is used to convey messages to other people and without a language the people will find it difficult to communicate and express their ideas, thought and wishes. This language comes from an agreement in society which has own structure, rules, vocabulary and speaking instruction that differ one another. There are three categories of general communication namely, Traditional, National, and International language.
In daily communication, traditional language becomes the first language, or called as a mother tongue, because it is the first language that people get from their parents. In Indonesia, people speak Indonesian as their second language or called as National language to communicate with anyone (Indonesian) whatever their first language they speak (Javanese, Sudanese, etc.), but when they want to speak to other people coming from other countries, they cannot use Indonesian as a means of communication. English is a way to solve the miscommunication between Indonesian and people from other countries since English is used as an International language.
Reading is something crucial and indispensable for the students because the success of their study depends on the greater part of their ability to read. If their reading skill is low, they are very likely to fall in their study or at least they will have difficulty in making progress. On the other hand if they have a good ability in reading, they will a batter chance to succeed in their study. In main idea, make inference find cause and effect, find out detail information, check reference word and check vocabulary in context.
Those are essential aspect or elements to comprehend information in reading text.
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One of component is reading. Reading is a part of four basic skills of English. It means that reading has its role as the successor part in English. (Wiryodijoyo, 2003: 1).
By mastering reading skill, people who want to study will find a fact that reading can bring them to the improvement of their English skill.
Reading must be optimal to improve student’s ability in learning language.
Reading at senior high school focus reading learning system so, the process will appropriate with learning target.
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 needs specific strategies and abilities. Eight component of reading comprehension, that are (1) skimming and scanning, (2) vocabulary in context, (3) finding topic and main ideas, (4) finding purpose and organization, (5) finding reference words, (6) finding detail and factual information, (7) finding reference words, and (8) finding attitude of the author and the tone of the passage, at the least the students need to able understand how to find (1) the factual information in the text, (2) finding topic and main ideas, (3) vocabulary in context, (4) reference words in order to get and to share the information from the reading text.
In English curriculum of Islamic senior high school Laboratorium Jambi, the material thought are reading, listening, writing and speaking. According to this curriculum, it understandable that reading is applying one of all which should be thought and can be mastered by each student’s in class. In order words, reading in learning English is part of important subject, which should be thought to the students.
As we know, many students are not active readers and are confused about what they should be thinking as they read. So, it is needed appropriate students difficulties in reading comprehension.it have to use compatible to make teaching learning process is done better. So, though a bout story, it is more effective and efficient to be done by the teacher in the process of teaching and learning English. They are always given exercises that must be answered by them self.
As long as the author of PKM (grand tour), I found and saw a lot of problems which are experienced by students in learning English, where English is a compulsory subject for students learn, and as a subject matter that is in the national exam.
Often the students if they study reading they broken down. It is caused by the fact the reading learning process in only to read text, beside that the process of learning
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reading method at senior high school often concentrate on giving task to students to translate the text that makes students passive to communication and input understand how to read the text rightly.
But there are still many students who lack understanding and lack of interest in learning English, and English also be scary subjects for them, because the English language is new to them.
The students unable in getting the message from the text and they will be failure in answering the question real to the text. In fact, many students get difficulties in comprehending the English reading text. Getting general information, specific information, vocabulary, grammatical and main idea of paragraph of reading text.
Therefore, teachers should be able to find an interesting strategy in the process of teaching and learning so as to make the students happy and interested in learning English and capable in the readings.
Especially the students who will study in Senior High School Laboratorium Jambi are hoped to able to understand and have good abilities in English such as writing, listening, speaking and reading.
Based on the reasons above, most of the students are rather low in English reading. These phenomena become a problem, why the students result in English is low, because some students had been reviewed and they answer that they don’t know to learn frequently.
At the second grade of Senior High School Laboratorium Jambi author of many students find difficulty in reading and understanding the content of the readings and this problem into a solution for teachers to cope with the difficulties in dealing with students.
The researcher interested in conducting this research entitled “ Student’s Difficulties in Reading Comprehension at Second Grade at Islamic Senior High School Laboratorium Jambi”.
B. Limitation of the Research
In this research, the researcher focused on students’ difficulties in reading comprehension in English subject at second grade at Senior High School Laboratorium Jambi. The researcher analyzed the data from student’s worksheets in the test about story of The Legendary of Timun Emas. The researcher also analyzed the data from interview with the teacher and documents.
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C. Formulation of the Research
Based on the background above, the formulation of the problem in this research is:
What are the students’ difficulties in reading comprehension in English subject at second grade at Senior High School Laboratorium Jambi?
D. The Purpose of the Research
Based on research problems, the purpose of the research is finding the answers to the questions stated in problem statement as follow :
To know the students’ difficulties in reading comprehension in English subject at second grade at Senior High School Laboratorium Jambi.
E. The significant of the Research 1. The researcher
This research helps the researcher to improve her knowledge about it and researcher can give a solution for the problems.
2. For a teacher
As a result of this research should be a beneficial contribution for English teacher of senior high school to attention the students teaching and learning in application of reading text.
3. For a student
This research will be useful to improve the students’ activity in reading class and to help students solving problem in reading activities.
6 CHAPTER II LITERATURE REVIEW A. Definition of Reading
Reading is an activity to understand the content of the text that we read. By reading, reader can get any message and information which can increase knowledge.
According to Pang et al. (2003), reading about understands written texts and comprehension is the process of making sense of words, sentences and connected text.
Reading comprehension involves both perception and thought. Readers will use background of knowledge, vocabulary, grammatical knowledge, and other strategies to help them to understand a written text. It means reading is a process of communication between the writer and the reader. The writer has a message such feeling, facts, ideas, and arguments they want to share. Then, the writer puts the message into the words. So, reading is a way in which something interpreted or understood. Reading does not only mean to understand the words or the grammar. It is not just translating but reading is thinking, in order to read well in English reading material text, and the reader must think what the text means.
English is a foreign language for Indonesia students. It is certainly not easy for students to interpret the meaning or the idea from written text. Because to understand the reading text, the students must have a good competence in knowing the meaning of words, sentences, contents, and the most important is to know about the writer ideas.
States that reading is a transmitting of information process where the author tells all the readers about this ideas or massage. (Tohir, 2001:5). Such as, the author is regard as the informants (sender) and the reader on another hand is receiver. Reading is a mental processes or process of cognitive which a reader can follow the aspect and respond to
the massage of the writer. (Sugiarto, 2001)
From the explanation above, the researcher concludes that reading comprehension is the process of getting the meaning of the content and all information about the topic in the text. In fact, comprehending an English text is not easy to do for students because English is a foreign language. Many readers are not able to catch the author’s idea because of the limitation of thinking and analyzing the meaning of words and sentences.
Therefore, the reader should have good concentration in reading text to get the meaning of the author’s idea.
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Reading involves many things, not just recite the writings but also involves a visual activity, thinking, psycholinguistic, and cognitive. As a visual process, reading is a process of translating the writer symbols (letter) into spoken words or speech. As a process of thinking, reading involves word recognition, literal comprehension, interpretation, critical reading creative. (Yuhana, 2013: 7)
Based on definition above, reading is an activity that analyses in doing the reader to obtain the massages of author thought the media wrote.
In learning English especially reading there are kind of reading as follow:
1. Reading Aloud
This activity is mean for practice in order the students can read with pronunciation right. Reading with the hard voice usually using technique look and say purpose to can say the words, and English sentence with right. Except teacher pronunciation, also necessary practice pressing and intonation English with right. (Suyanto, 2007:64)
2. Silent Reading
The reading a discourse or text without voice also a activity reading that necessary implementation at class. Silent reading also practices students for seriously focus on attention of main in order can understand the content discourse or texts. (Suyanto, 2007: 66)
3. Reading Comprehension
This activity reading purpose for gets information from text or the material the read. Therefore, the students are practiced read with purpose gets information about the content of text. Usually for knowing what have student understood with the content of text. (Suyanto, 2007: 66)
Learning read English as foreign language in Asian also often using whole-word-approaches. Student’s as learners at first study words. Such as cat, dog and ship only as word not in the sentence
4. Independent Reading
Helping students be reader independent is efforts for developing skill speaking or written, for example, have read the students is requested retelling or inform it’s friends about what have read, then the students can write back using words themselves. (Suyanto, 2007: 68)
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B. Difficultis
According Slameto (2003:54), the factors that affect learning difficulties there are two, namely: Internal factors are factors that exist within the individual being studied. In discussing this internal factor, the author will discuss it into 2 factors, namely the factors of physiology and psychological factor. The psychological factors that influence the learning process include intelligence, attention, interest, talent, motive, maturity and readiness (Slameto, 1999: 55).
1. Intelligence – intelligence enables the learner to learn better and understand things and relationship between them. It includes both general and specific intelligence related to specific area of learning. This refers to the level of intelligence, creative, aptitude and other abilities necessary for learning.
2. Attention – according to al-Ghazali (2001) in Slameto (2003) that attention is the soul’s soul-elevated activity is aimed solely at an object or thing or set of objects. Learner must learn to concentrate his attention on learning.
Attentiveness helps to grasp learning material. Distraction at attention affects learning.
3. Talent- according to Hilgard in Slameto (2003) that talent is the capacity to learn. In other words, talent is the ability to learn. That ability will be realized in real achievement after learning or training. Then according to Muhibbin (2003) that talent is a potential ability possessed by someone to achieve success in the future.
4. Interest – according to Jersild and Taisch in Nurkecana (1996) that interest is a fear of activities freely chosen by the individual.
5. Motivation – it is the most important factor influencing the learner. If the learner has no motivation to learn, any amount of force will be futile. More the motivation better will be the learning. In addition to motivation, the learner should have a definite goal. It will direct the individual appropriately and help him to achieve the goal.
6. Maturity – is maturation and learning go hand in hand. We learn things also according to maturity of our body. For example, a child of 6 months cannot learn to ride a bicycle even after vigorous training, because it requires muscular or physical maturity.
7. Readiness – this is like motivation. If the learner is ready to learn, they will develop motivation to learn. Along with readiness a strong willpower is also
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essential to overcome hurdles and problems. Readiness will help to develop a positive attitude in learner.
A leaning disability / learning difficulty are a neurological disorder. In simple teams, understanding learning difficulties can be interpreted as a disorder caused by differences in the way a person’s brain is connected. These neurological disorders make a difference in brain function with someone who has a normal brain. In the article titled 6 causes of learning difficulties in children, you can find what the causes of learning are difficulties that occur in children. Children with learning difficulties actually have good skills or are smarter than their peers. But they may have difficulty reading, writing, spelling, reasoning, remembering, and / or organization information when told to look for things themselves or if taught in a conventional way.
Understanding learning difficulties according to experts when we are with someone who has learning difficulties, we should care more and support them. Here are some experts’ opinions on understanding learning difficulties: Lyon (1996) the concept of learning disability focuses on the gap between academic achievement and child’s learning capacity. For example, children with reading difficulties will also experience learning distraction at a certain level. Individuals with learning disability have average general intelligence and even above average. Some researchers say that learning disability is a gap between the age of mental maturity intelligence based on mental age, not age based on the date of birth) should be and the age of achievement or ability achievement of current achievement (the real one).
C. Reading Comprehension Strategies
In improving reading skills, the students have to practice reading a lot, and use certain strategies. The student ability to comprehend the text depends on their ability to use strategy to understand what writer says. It means that strategy helps the students to comprehend the text they read. Nuttal (1982) classifies reading strategies into four types. Those are skimming, scanning, extensive and intensive readings.
1. Skimming
Skimming is a useful skill to be applied in reading. Grellet (1999) stated that skimming means glance rapidly over a text to get the gist of it. It means skimming is used to build students confidence and an understanding that it is possible to gain meaning without reading every word in a text. Skimming assists the readers to understand the main idea of the text before reading it carefully.
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Students can do skimming in several ways such as reading the title or the other heading and look at 10 the picture, reading the first and the last paragraph of the text (Islam and Steenburgh, 2009). The technique of skimming is reading outline (overview) to get an overview 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. Skimming is process of rapid coverage of reading matter to determine its gist or main idea (Brown: 213) 2. Scanning
Scanning means glancing rapidly through a text to search for specific piece of information (Grellet, 1981) it means that scanning is the ability to read a text quickly in order to find specific information that is needed like a date, a figure, or a name and ignore over all unimportant information. For example, students can the list of name in a telephone directory to find a phone number.
Scanning helps the reader find information quickly without reading the whole text. Scanning is to read a text quickly in order to locate a specific item of information. (Harmer 288) We using scanning for 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 a requiring rapid identification of relevant bits of information.
3. Extensive reading
In extensive reading, the readers usually face a longer text. In reading, the readers need a total understanding of writing. According to Brown (2001), extensive reading is carried out to achieve a general understanding of a text. Long and Richards (1987) identify extensive reading as occurring when the students read large amounts of high interest material, concentrating of meaning, reading for gist and skips unknown the words. So, the aims of extensive reading are to build the readers’ confidence and enjoyment. Extensive reading one of the fundamental condimental conditions of a successful extensive reading program is that students should be reading material which they can understand. (Harmer:
283). here the reader is more care at mean of text than mean of word.
4. Intensive reading
Intensive reading is reading for detail. It usually has a shorter text. A reader usually wants to get some specific information. According to Macleod (2011), intensive reading exercises may include looking at main ideas versus
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details, 11 understanding of what the text implies, making inferences, looking at the order of information and how it affects the message, identifying words that connect one idea to another and identifying words that indicate change from one section to another. Intensive reading involves learners reading in detail with specific learning aims tasks. (Jeremy harmer: 286) it can be compared with extensive reading, which involves learners reading texts for enjoyment and to develop general reading skills.
D. Reading Comprehension Aspect
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.
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.
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 12 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.
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 has difficulties in understanding material is that they have lack of vocabularies.
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
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order to make inferences. It means that the clues in the text will help students to build assumption and draw conclusion. So they can answer the questions. These questions are often stated in one the following form:
“From the passage, we can conclude that…”
“It can be inferred from the passage…”
“What the meaning of the statement above?” 13
Therefore, sometimes the students are difficult to find the conclusion on the text because the meaning of the statement is not written on the text.
The last type of question that is usually found in reading test is detail question or information. This question used to check student’s ability to understand material that is directly stated in the text. Some example of detail question falls in the following pattern: “According to the passage, who were fighting for the conversation in the forest?”
“All of the following are the true except...”
“A person, date, or place is…”
In understanding and answering detail question, the students can use scanning strategy. In addition, to find out the answer of detail question, the reader can note or underline the key word in the question, and then scan the passage for that words synonym.
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. As for some of the opinions of experts on the purpose of reading:
According (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 that intellectual power.
3. To get pleasure or to get entertainment.
According (Nurhadi, 2000) argues that the purpose of reading is as follow:
1. Understand in detail and thoroughly the contents of the book.
2. Catch the main idea or main idea is right.
3. Get information about something.
4. Recognize the meaning of words.
5. Want to know the important event that occurred in surrounding communities.
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6. Want to get pleasure from works of literature.
7. Want to know the important events happening around the world.
8. Want to get information about someone’s opinion (expert) of the definition of a term.
Based on definition above purpose of reading is to obtain information from the text. Which includes the contents, understand the meaning of reading? Meaning sense (meaning) is closely related to the purpose, or we intensively in reading.
E. Reading Comprehension Challenges
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
Factors difficulties that faced by students divided into external and 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). Test. Thus, from these factors arise some difficulties in reading comprehension.
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 comprehend long sentence they fail to understand the main idea presented in the text. 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, 15 the students spent a lot attention on detail with the
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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)
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.
House environment it cannot be neglected that parent’s 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 16 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 supports them to learn English text.
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.
There are some difficulties in studying reading. There are some difficulties items in studying English text, they are:
1. If the reader who don’t have background knowledge, ability.
2. The reader doesn’t have motivation to overcome the barriers presented inconsideration.
3. The reader who has trouble in recognizing word.
4. The reader doesn’t like reading.
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5. The reader doesn’t have sufficient opportunities to develop the language skill and strategy necessary to becoming proficient reader.
6. The reader doesn’t obvious structure.
Much greater difficulty in measuring comprehension is apparent when one tries to evaluate the reader’s understanding in the more intangible areas of critical reading and thinking, judging, evaluating, or applying understanding gained from the printed page. (Wagman, 2003:93),
According to Burgmeier, Eldred, and Zimmermen (2007) the difficulty of reading comprehension can divide, 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 ableto make reading and study time a more meaningful valuable, productive, and enjoyable experience. (Culter, 2003:2).
Students’ difficulties in comprehending the reading text, they are; Vocabulary, Grammar structure, Literal comprehension, inferential comprehension, applied comprehension, Critical reading, and Format of reading text. (Jaya, 2005: 25).
Understanding learning difficulties according to experts when we are with someone who has learning difficulties, we should care more and support them. Here are some experts’ opinions on understanding learning difficulties: Lyon (1996) the concept of learning disability focuses on the gap between academic achievement and child’s learning capacity. For example, children with reading difficulties will also experience learning distraction at a certain level. Individuals with learning disability have average general intelligence and even above average. Some researchers say that learning disability is a gap between the age of mental maturity intelligence based on mental age, not age based on the date of birth) should be and the age of achievement or ability achievement of current achievement (the real one).
F. Reading Comprehension at Senior High School
Reading comprehension means to understand what has been read. English has been taught as a foreign language in Indonesia. However, it does not mean that the result of teaching English in the school was satisfying, even though the fact is teaching reading process are continuously being taught within three years at senior high school. Reading
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makes students enjoy their learning process and gives several advantages in finding some information that is needed. It is an unlimited area that makes students learn about many things, such as education, politic, social, culture, religion, and health. All of that information can be obtained by reading.
Nowadays, at senior high school, teaching reading intends to develop students’ skill in reading comprehension. Based on the basic competence 2013 of 17 the first grade senior high school, the students are expected to comprehend social function, text structure, and language features in reading descriptive, narrative, recount texts, expository texts and so on in oral and written form. However, in a real situation, the students do not achieve the curriculum expectation and have lower ability in reading comprehension. In addition, to overcome the difficulties of students in reading, teachers must first find out or know what difficulties experienced by students during the reading process and factors that cause difficulty in reading.
Reading comprehension is the process of obtaining meaning from print is fundamental to learning in the subjects. (Doung Buehl, 2000:5). Reading comprehension is the ability to derive meaning from written material, from a variety of text formats.
From expository fact based text, readers should be able to identify the main idea and supporting details. For literary texts, students are expected to identify elements such as characters’ traits, setting, plot, climax, and resolutions.
Comprehension is that a reader constructs meaning from a text rather than merely reproducing the word on the page. (Doung Buehl, 2001:5).
We define reading comprehension as the process of simultaneously extracting and constructing meaning. In the other words, we recognize both challenges: figuring out how print representation words and engaging in the translation of print to sound accurately and efficiently (extracting), at the same time formulating a representation of the information being presented, which inevitably requires building new meanings and integrating new whit old information (constructing meaning) (Anne Polselli and Catherine E. Snow,2003:1).
Comprehension is at the heart of what it means to really read by thinking and understanding and getting at the meaning behind a text. Comprehension instruction begins before children can even conventionally read. As children are read to during read-aloud, they are asked think about characters, make predictions about what will come next, question and wonder what’s happening, and consider what lesson they can learn from the book. (Serravello,2010).
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Comprehension is understanding a text that is read, or the process of
“construction meaning” because it involves all of the elements of the reading process working together as a text to create a representation of the text in the reader mind.
Reading comprehension is once a unitary process and a set of discreet process.
The relationship units of process in reading comprehension it takes in Ideas that are directly stated are literal comprehension to read between the lines is interpretative comprehension to read for evaluation in critical reading and to read beyond the line is creative reading. Reading comprehension understands a text what head written.
(Yuhana, 2013:10).
There are some elements of reading comprehension question to measure student’s reading comprehension. They are finding topic and main idea, finding information, checking reference word, checking vocabulary in context. (Yuhana, 2013:10).
From the explanation above, reading comprehension is a complex process. It requires the readers to understand and interpret the contents of the texts and then get the message though a written language.
a. Identifying main idea and topic paragraph
Topic of paragraph is paragraphs which were developed by exposure to small parts so that the sentence of a general nature becoming apparent. Whereas, main idea is the author’s idea about the topic it is stated in topic sentence. In written paragraph well, most of the sentence support. Describe, or explain the main idea.
b. Inference
Inference is those question that ask the students to draw conclusion through some details are not stated explicitly. So, they can be understood from the other details that are stated. For example: the teacher gives short story for students.
c. Factual information
Factual information questions about what is true according to the information and those about what is not true these question Based fact.
d. Checking the referring words
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Checking the referring words question require the students to find out the concepts (words or phrases) mentioned earlier in the passage.
e. Checking vocabulary in teaching
Checking vocabulary is the meaning of words, because same need vocabulary to guess the meaning of words based on the context which the words are found.
G. Reading Comprehension Theory
According to Finochiaro and Bonomo in Tarigan (1986: 8) Reading is bringing meaning to and getting meaning from printed or written material. From this perspective reading is understood to be complex cognitive process in which reader and text to create meaningful discourse, Brynes in Dicky (2009: 4) also state reading as a process of getting meaning from print using knowledge about then written alphabet and bout the sound structure of oral language for purposes of achieving understanding. So people use this knowledge to make sense out of printed language. The fundamental goal to any reading activity is to understand what is read. Without comprehension, will be no reading. One function of reading is from readers to get information through written from that can contribute to their knowledge or give them satisfaction and joy.
Another concept about reading means of language acquisition of communication and of sharing information and ideas. According to Davis in Agustina (2008:7) there are five types of comprehension skill to measure students’ reading comprehension, (1) recalling word meaning (vocabulary knowledge), (2) drawing inference from content, (3) following structure of passage, (4) recognizing a writer’s purpose, attitude, tone, mood, and (5) finding answer to question and answered explicitly or on paraphrase.
Reading is an extraordinary achievement when one considers the number of levels and components that must be mastered. In addition, reading is a process to obtain meaning from written text; generally, reading is a process to obtain much information.
By reading, we can know about information or from a text.
According to Hodgson, reading is a process which is carried and used by readers to obtain the message, which will be delivered, thought the medium of word by author. A process which demands that the word is unity will be seen at a glance and the meaning of word can be determined individually. If this not fulfilled, the explicit massage will not be caught or understood, and the process of reading it is not implemented properly.
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Reading is the ability to draw meaning from the printed page and interpret this information appropriately. However, without quibbling over the exact wording of such a definition, it is nonetheless, insufficient, as a way to understand the true nature of reading abilities.
20 CHAPTER III
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY A. Research Design
One of the important parts of research is the research methodology.
Based on the problem of the research, it is very clear that this research is to describe about students’ difficulties in reading comprehension. Thus, the type of this research is descriptive qualitative. Descriptive qualitative design is generally called research design (Sugiyono, 2010) in this research the location taken of the researcher at the second grade of Senior High School Laboratorium Jambi.
Qualitative research is certain habitual in social knowledge that is fundamental way depends on people observation and related to the event in their environment. (Margono, 2005:54)
Qualitative is data that being in the form adjective, example, and” very good” briefed SB Good Briefed B etc. (Arikunto.2003:21).
B. Setting and Subject of the Research 1. Setting of the Research
This research conducted at Senior High School Labaroratorium Jambi. The school is located in Telanaipura Jambi. The subject of this research is the student’s second grade of Senior High School Laboratorium Jambi.
The researcher considers taking the subject of the research is in eleventh class, because there reading comprehension still low. They are difficult to comprehend the text and still try to translate word by word to get the meaning from the text. The research deliberate choices this setting of location for some reasons. Firstly, this school has been making English as one of the main subject, following the national curriculum. Secondly, this school has good English teachers.
2. Subject of the Research
The subject of this research is English teachers and some students.
Here, the English teachers also as the key informant, whom the information and primary data was taken.
C. Kinds and Source of Data
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1. Kinds of Data
All of information of eleventh class students of MA Laboratorium Jambi in reading comprehension in English subject will be analyzed in this research is taken from some sources namely:
a. Primary Data
According to Burhan Bungin (2007) primary data is found out directly and soon from the source of data. It can be formed information about main problem in the research. Primary data are the data taken directly by the research from the respondent with mediators. The primary data is group collected directly from field through interview. The primary data is this research is the English teacher.
b. Secondary Data
Secondary data is taken from the source as documentation, opinions, facilities, and the structure of the organization and geographical place of the research object. It can be available data and this data can be obtained by reading, seeing, or listening. The data included in this category are: documentation, picture statistic biro, information, banner, and letter.
The secondary data in this research are the students of second grade at Senior High School Laboratorium Jambi and the school’s documentation. The data will be collected from documentation of MA Laboratorium Jambi. They are:
1) History and geography of MA Laboratorium Jambi.
2) Organization structure of the state MA Laboratorium Jambi.
3) Situation teachers, staff official administration and students state MA Laboratorium Jambi.
4) Facilities and infrastructure situation of the state MA Laboratorium Jambi.
c. Source of Data
According to Arikunto (2004), the data source is subject where data is found. The source data in this research are from the students’
difficulties in reading comprehension the recorded in English subject at eleventh class at MA Laboratorium Jambi.
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Source of data is the subject where the data is derived. The researcher gets the source of data to this research by some people they are:
1. The English teachers of the state MA Laboratorium Jambi.
2. The students of the state MA Laboratorium Jambi.
3. Headmaster of the state MA Laboratorium Jambi.
D. Technique of Collecting Data
According to Lofland (1884) main source data in qualitative research are words and actions (Moleong, 2014: 157). Moleong stated that the source of data in qualitative research can be collected by observation, interview, documentation, field note, photo, recording, and picture.
School Laboratorium Jambi, from head master, the researcher can know the information of story, general description of teachers and staff.
From teacher and staff, the researcher can know the information of English learning process, the student’s difficulty in reading comprehension and the teacher’s efforts do by teacher and staff. All the students at the second grade with of number 23 students
The technique of collecting data will be used in this research as follow:
1. Observation
Observation is doing the observation directly of the research object to see from near the activity which is done the things which is research.
Observation is the complex process, a process that determined from whole aspects of biology and psychology. (Arikunto, 2013:172).
The observation consist of activities is give attention toword a subject by using test of sense instrument. (Bungin, 2007:52)
2. Documentation
The dcumentation comes from “ document” mean written things. In this method the writer research things such as: book test rsult etc ( Arikunto, 1993).
In conducting documentation method written conductd research such as: book, magazine, document, roles, meeting note, diary, etc.
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The writer tries to ssearch from students’ worksheet in students’ reading comprehension at the second grade of senior high school laboratprium jambi.
E. Technique of Data Analysis
Sugiyono (2012) comments that a qualitative data analysis is a process of searching and arranging systematically the obtained data from interview, field notes, and documentation by organizing data into categories, explaining into units, synthesizing, arranging into patterns, sorting the important ones, and drawing conclusion. In order to be comprehended by research or the readers.
The process of analyzing qualitative data are done by interactive and continue until finish hence the data will be satisfied. The steps in analyzing the collected data will be seen as follows:
1. Data Reduction
Miles and Huberman (1994) Data reduction refers to the process of selecting, focusing, simplifying, abstracting, and transforming the data that appear in written up field notes or transcriptions. Data reduction is analysis that helps to sharp, sort, focus, discard and organize the data in a way that allows for “final” conclusions to be drawn and verified.
2. Data Display
Miles and Huberman (1994) the second major flow of analysis activity is data display. Display generically means organized, compressed assembly of information that permits conclusion drawing and actions. Data display was the second form of data analysis after the process of selecting, simplifying, and organizing raw data.
3. Conclusion drawing
The researcher will make conclusions after he finished collecting the data from English teacher and students.
F. Triangulation
Triangulation is qualitative cross-validation. It assesses the sufficiency of the data according to the convergence of multiple data collection procedure.
(wiersma in sugiono 2010,372).
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In this research, the triangulation present used two instruments by researcher. They are documentation, and field notes. Triangulation is done by researcher as data’s checking from other source so that researcher gets the truth.
G. Schedule of The Research
In order to this research effective and finish according to a specified time.
So the writer arranges the schedule of the research. It divided into four steps, such as:
First : Arranging Thesis Proposal and Pointing of Supervisor Second : Improvement of Thesis Proposal Seminar, Research Permit Third : Collecting Data and Analysis Data
Fourth : Consultation to the Supervisor and Improvement
Fifth : Continue the Analysis; Arrange the Research Outline, Writing Report and Final Report
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Table 3. 1
Research Schedule
NO
MONTH 2018
ECTIVITIES November December January February March April Mei
1 2 3 4 1
2 3 4 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4
1
Making
Proposal and Instrument √ √ √ √ √
2 Improvement of Proposal √ √
3
Revise from
The supervisor √ √ √ √ √
4 Seminary √
5
Improvement
Seminary √ √
6
Research
And collecting data √ √ √
7
Improvement
report √ √ √ √
8 Final report √
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CHAPTHER IV
FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION
This chapter wraps the research findings and discussion about students’ difficulties in reading comprehension in English subject at second grade of Senior High School Laboratorium Jambi. Data provided here are derived from activities during teaching learning process in reading comprehension about a test story the legend of Timun Emas. These findings were obtained from observation, interview, test and document.
A. Research Finding
In this chapter the difficulties researchers found what experienced students were in reading comprehension at the second grade of Senior High School Laboratorium Jambi.
Hare the obtained in the field in the report is based on two activities in the observations of students doing research in learning activities in the classroom and test ware given in to answer some questions.
Difficulties whose are experienced by students in reading comprehension at the second grade of Senior High School Laboratorium Jambi.
1. The students don’t understand with the content of a text.
There are some students in MA Laboratorium Jambi second grade doesn’t understand the content of a text and can’t answer questions with well. Most the students at second grade of MA Laboratorium Jambi when do exercise its result of answer them is bed.
Based on observation in second grade the researcher see many students doesn’t understand with the content of text, for example when the teacher asks about content of text which are they read, student can’t answer question from the teacher. In a reading text there are questions and the student have to answer that questions of course for can answer the question the students have to comprehend that text, so that can answer the question with well. But in second grade most of students can’t answer the questions.
There between students doesn’t understand have to what they do when meet a text reading and the students only look for the meaning of words in dictionary and the meaning of word they write in book, but they can’t translate of sentence. Based on the
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test which is researcher give to students from total 16 students only 8 students can comprehend the text and answer the question with well.
In the world of education in English has been made a compulsory subject in Senior High School, but the problem in Senior High School Laboratorium Jambi especially second grade still many students didn’t like the English subjects. The average student’s reason why they didn’t like the English subject because the English subject was difficult for them the English was different with Indonesia from words, grammar, pronunciation. So student felt afraid in learned English subject because the students afraid made mistake in study English especially reading.
Based on observation researcher at the second grade of Senior High School Laboratorium Jambi many students didn’t like English subject because student didn’t have background knowledge, and ability.
The teacher always explains the material, for example reading material, teacher explained about reading text but there are some students didn’t heard the teacher explained the material, some of the students chatted whit a friend at his side and there are also students who slept, because the students didn’t like these subject, so that they couldn’t focus on the materials that explained the teacher, and although there are some the students heard or saw the teacher explained the material but when the teacher asked about the material students couldn’t answer, and no one the students who are asked about the material being explained teachers.
Based on the result of test at the second grade of Senior High School Laboratorium Jambi from 16 students only a few of the students who is like read English text and almost students at the second grade of Senior High School couldn’t understand a text reading, such as found main idea and specific information in a text reading, because the students didn’t like English subject so the students also didn’t like read the English text. for example, when the teacher gave the reading exercise to students which in a reading text the students had to found main idea, specific information and answered question, the researcher saw the students were busy do theirs exercise, but from result their exercise only a few student who answered correctly and many students who answered incorrectly.
