THE EFFECT OF COOPERATIVE INTEGRATED READING AND COMPOSITION (CIRC) TECHNIQUE TOWARDS STUDENTS’
READING COMPREHENSION OF SMPN 21 PEKANBARU
*Adek Sriwahyuni, S.Pd **Dr. Rugaiyah, M.Pd **Johari Afrizal, S.Pd.,M.Ed **Dosen FKIP Universitas Islam Riau *Mahasiswi FKIP Universitas Islam Riau
ABSTRACT: Reading is one of the four language skills. It is the skill that need more attention from the students to have good interaction with the text in order to get the meaning from the text. In reading, the reader needs some techniques. One technique is Cooperative Integrated Reading and Composition (CIRC). CIRC is a comprehensive program which is created specially by some experts to teach reading and writing aspects. The use of this technique could help the students’ in comprehending the subject matter presented by teachers. In this research, the writer used Cooperative Integrated Reading and Composition to overcome students’ problem in reading narrative text and to find out the effect of this technique towards students’ reading comprehension. This research was an experimental research which was focused on pre test - post test control group design. The research was done at the eight grade students of SMPN 21 Pekanbaru. Moreover, it was started from the beginning of November up to the end of November 2014. There were 80 students as the sample of this research, which divided into two groups. Where class VIII.7 as experimental group and VIII.8 as control group. The forms of the test were essay and objective tests which the question related about the generic structure of narrative text (Orientation, Complication, Resolution, and Theme). Furthermore, to obtain the valid and reliable data, this research used some instruments such as tests, documentation and media. The research finding was that the Cooperative Integrated Reading and Composition Technique gave the significant effect on students’ reading comprehension, by the different of the result of increasing mean score from 60.20 in pre test become 86.10 in post test for experimental group which was used Cooperative Integrated Reading and Composition technique where the level of significant <0.05 in post test. Based on the findings and discussion, it could be concluded that using Cooperative Integrated Reading and Composition gave significant effect to the students’ reading comprehension.
INTRODUCTION
English is one of international languages. English is used by most of countries in the world to communicate, to interact, and to deal from one country to other countries. English is very needed by people in globalization era now in education, information,
In this research, the researcher only focused on reading aspects in narrative text because the researcher wanted to know the student’s ability in comprehending English reading narrative text to students of SMPN 21 Pekanbaru. The writer saw that students’ score for English especially in reading could not reach the passing grade for almost 70% where the passing grade (KKM) for this school is 75. It could be proven from the daily test and final exam test score. Besides, the researcher also took some statements from some experts that reading aspect or reading comprehension was very important to the learners to get some information in a text which is written in English writing system. In fact that most of the English learner always find difficulties to identify the meaning of English text writing system and also the students have lack of vocabularies.
Therefore, to overcome the problems above, the teacher could implement some technique to arouse students’ interest in reading. The techniques could help the readers’ understanding and comprehension. One of the techniques which could help students’ reading comprehension was Cooperative Integrated Reading and Comprehension (CIRC). CIRC technique is comprehensive program which was created specially by some experts to teach reading and writing aspects. According to Institutes of
Education Science states that A Cooperative Integrated Reading and Composition is a comprehensive reading and writing program for students. It included story related activities, direct instruction in reading comprehension, and integrated reading and language arts activities. Pairs of students (grouped either by across ability levels) read to each other, predict how stories will end, summarize stories, write responses, and practices spelling, decoding and vocabulary. It enables the students to understand the text by paired with other students. This CIRC technique was “Cooperative Integrated Reading and Composition was a school-based program that targets reading, writing, and language arts. Each student is paired with another student and then assigned to a group of students at the same or different reading level. The reason why the researcher used CIRC technique was the researcher had an assumption that it may be useful to help the student’s ability in comprehending an English reading text. Besides, this study also took an experimental research as research method because the researcher wanted to find out effect of this technique.
LITERATURE
The Nature of Reading
system into a language or a process of getting meaning from written material. Reading is an enjoyable activity when it is carried out effectively. The students should be motivated to acquire this skill and they should and they should also read a lot of any kind of information in order to increase their knowledge. Harmer (1998:68) stated that: “Reading is a useful for other purpose too: any exposure to English (provide students understand it more or less) is good thing for language students. At the very least, some of the language sticks in their minds as part of process of language acquisition, and, if the reading text is especially interesting and engaging, acquisition is likely to be even more successful.”
It can be inferred from the meaning of the reading above that reading is the main reason of why students learn the language. The writer also can conclude from the statement above that the choice of the topic is one of importance to make the students interested in reading. So, teacher must know the ability of the students or what the students want in learning. The topic also must be entertaining. It means that, when the students read the text, they are not bored. Teacher is not only has good quality in teaching but also must have the ability to know what the students want in learning reading. Especially in this research, the writer used narrative text. The topics which used by the
writer must be interesting and entertaining.
The Purpose of Reading
Reading is an activity with a purpose. A person may read in order to gain information or verify existing knowledge, or in order to critique a writes ideas or writing style. A person may also read for enjoyment of the language being read. The purposes for reading guide the reader’s selection of texts.
read for a purpose, reading serves a function.” To comprehend the words, sentences or text everyone has different style, skill, and technique. Not all people have same technique to comprehend the text. Good readers indicate the way in acquiring information integrated with their background knowledge of what they read. Besides, it can infer that different reader has different motivation depend on their purpose in reading. Reading Comprehension
Reading comprehension is most likely to occur when students are reading what they want to read. It is an activity that is sharing of mind between the writer and the reader. It means that reading with comprehension is not only understanding the words in a sentence, but also understanding what short of writings are going through the writer’s mind when he/writers the words. This idea is supported by Fraida Dubin (1982) stated that reading comprehension is not only understanding the words of the sentence, but also understanding the writer’s mind about the text he has made. In other words it is not reaction to the text, but interaction between the writer and reader mediated through the text.
In addition, Grellet (1981) stated that reading comprehension is an activity to understand a written text means extracting the require information from it as efficient as possible. To do
this, there are two ways students should do. First, a good reader will quickly reject the irrelevant information and find what the reader is looking for. Secondly, it is enough to understand the gist of the text only but more detailed information is necessary.
Moreover, in comprehending a text, usually the readers have to get through reading process which includes the reader’s background knowledge. This statement is supported by Aulls (1982:52) reading comprehension is the activity to associate the knowledge that the readers already get to the meaning in the text, absorb them, the adapt the prior knowledge.
The Components of Reading Comprehension
In reading comprehension, many factors or strategies should be done by the students. However in this reading comprehension, the writer only will discusses five components that are appropriate with junior high school curriculum, they are:
1. Finding main idea
2. Finding factual information
Warriner (1968:849) stated that it was necessary to learn facts, name, dates, places, and definition. It required to the readers to read specific details such as person, places, time, and events it is usually appear with WH question.
3. Finding supporting idea
Supporting ides places after main idea, it supports the main idea statement Pollock et, al (1961:5). 4. Finding the meaning of vocabulary
To find the meaning of vocabulary can be done by the reader’s by guessing it in context. Pollock et, al (1961:2) stated that that was not effective if we found the meaning of tag vocabulary learning comes from through the words origin and basic meaning, its structure and its function in the context.
5. Identify referents
In order to avoid repeated words or phrases, the author use reference word and being able to identify the words or phrases to which they refer will help the reader understand the reading passage.
All of Reading components mentioned above will be used in this research. When the students do reading activity, they must know what the main idea, find the factual information, and find the supporting idea. The importance one is finding the meaning of the words
because the key when reading activity is the mastery of vocabularies. If the students have much vocabulary, it can make the students understand and comprehend the text. If the students lack of vocabularies, it will make the students difficult to comprehend the text. Therefore, the students must know the meaning of each word, to make them easier in getting information in the text and add their knowledge especially to know the meaning in new words.
METHOD
The design of this research was an experimental research which referred to The Pretest-Posttest Control Group Design (Gay L.R, 2000 : 392) where the design required at least two groups. There were two variables in this research, first the effect of CIRC technicque as independent variable, while the students’ reading comprehension as dependent variable.
The population of this research is all of the eight grade of SMPN 21 Pekanbaru in Academic 2014/2015. There are 400 in ten classes.
The writer used a formed by random assignment. The writer took two classes in this research after doing the lotery, the writer got class VIII7 (40 students) as an experimental group and VIII.8 (40 students) as a control group as the sample of this research.
There are 20 questions where 10 questions for objectives and 10 questions for essay. The test consists of narrative text.
FINDING AND DISCUSSION
After calculating mean score pre-test and post-pre-test in control and experimental group, now we can see the progress of students result in reading comprehension in narrative text by using Cooperative Integrated Reading and Composition.
The progress of the students’ score can be seen in the following table :
Table 1. The Improvement of Students’ Reading Comprehension in Comprehending Reading Texts
From the table 1 above, the writer showed the result of reading comprehension in pre-test and post-test
of the experimental group and control group. From the data can be seen that the result of the experimental group increased 1036 with the mean score was 25.9. Then, in control group increased 16 with the mean score is 0.4. It means that there is increase of students reading comprehension after being taught by using Cooperative Integrated Reading and Composition Technique. The
progress explain that teaching reading using CIRC Technique can develop the students’ reading comprehension.
Beside table above, we can see the percentage of the students’ increase in reading narrative text in the figure or chart as follow:
Chart 2. Students’ Improvement of Mean Score from Pre Test and Post Test Experimental Group. post test was conducted for both groups, the mean score of experimental group was 86.10 and control group was 60.65. It can be seen that experimental group got the increase means in post test for 25.9 points and control group was 0.4 points. It means that experimental group which taught by CIRC show positive effect in comprehending reading text. CONCLUSSION
(60.20) to (86.10) as post-test score for experimental group, and also the calculation of tobserved was greater than ttable (30.12>2.70). Moreover, it can be seen that there was positive effect in students’ reading comprehension especially in comprehending text after taught by CIRC technique.
The location of the research is at SMPN 21 Pekanbaru which is located on Jl. Arengka - Pekanbaru, with the target population of this research was the eight grade students’ of SMPN 21 Pekanbaru in academic year 2014/2015. Exactly, the writer took 80 students’ as the sample.
Having analyzed the data presented in the previous chapter, the conclusion can be drawn as follow: To see students’ reading comprehension by CIRC technique in teaching reading, the eight grade students’ of SMPN 21 Pekanbaru made remarkable progress. It can be seen from students’ scores of post-test, the experimental group mean score was 86.10.
CIRC technique in teaching reading facilitates to the students’ more, because the students just do what the teacher asked to them. CIRC technique in teaching reading brings real comprehension context into the classroom and positively contributes to the students’ reading comprehension improvement. CIRC Technique in teaching reading made the students’
motivated, interested in reading comprehension because they understand what they were doing right or not from the action that they made.
SUGGESTION
Dealing with the result of this research, some suggestions were offered as follows: It is expected that English Teachers can use CIRC Technique in teaching reading which can increase the students’ comprehension in reading. It is expected that English Teachers to be active to find out some techniques of teaching which can improve the students’ achievement in learning English especially for reading. So that the students will not feel bore when teacher teaching in the class.
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