The Background of the Study

reading skill. Thus, the students who has good reading skill, mostly they will success in the school. Thus it is very crucial for the students to learn reading skill in English. However, in fact, reading is not as easy as what people think because it is not only read a sentence and say it out to others but also we have to understand the content of the reading text and its purpose. Reading is one of English skills that should be mastered by the students. It is because reading skill is very useful in daily life. Therefore, learning reading skill is obligated for the students in both junior and senior high school. The aim of learning reading skill is to make students be able to read many types of skimming, scanning, intensive and extensive etc. In addition, the purpose of learning reading skill is to make students be able to understand communication process in English through reading. Such vivid explanation of how important reading skill, make the existence of this skill becomes important to be learnt by students. In SMA Kharisma Bangsa, reading skill is taught to all grades of Senior High School students. As a school which combined both national KTSP curriculum and international curriculum Cambridge curriculum, makes English role is really crucial. English is used in many subjects such as science, math and art, as the instructional language. Therefore, the ability of students in English reading cannot be necgleted. However, students still have serious problems in dealing with reading. Some students still have difficulty in comprehending and understanding the reading. It was proven when the writer did a teaching and learning observation at the eleventh grade students of SMA Kharisma Bangsa. The teacher revealed that reasons behind this lack of interest included students limited background knowledge, inability to understand the content of the text, and complicated organizational structure of the text. Moreover, based on the school data of SMA Kharisma Bangsa , students’ scores in reading skill are not satisfied enough. The average score mean score is 75.3. It can be classified as low as they actually have good proficiency in English skill. It ‘s happened because the students don’t understand about the book which they read. It means that they don’t comprehend when they read a book. In line with the studies in EFLESL contexts confirming the positive relationship between learner factors and language proficiency, the researcher believes that one of the factors which seem to affect the use of reading strategies is critical thinking abilit y. İn addition, Research concerning the relationship between critical thinking and each specific skill listening, speaking, and reading is limited. Therefore, this study is going to investigate the students’ critical thinking ability in correlations to t he students reading skill. İn this study, the writer intends to investigate whether or not there is a correlation between students’ critical thinking skill and students’ reading comprehension skill especially at the eleventh grade of SMA Kharisma Bangsa, with the title of the research is “The Relationship between Students’ Critical Thinking Skill and their Reading Comprehension of Descriptive Text ”.

B. Identification of the Problems

Based on the background of the study stated above, the problems were identified as follow: 1. Some students revealed that they are still confused on how to comprehend and understand reading text. 2. The eleventh grade students of SMA Kharisma Bangsa supposed to have good reading skill because this skill has already learnt by them since junior high school. However, the score gained by the students is low; the average mean score is 70.3 3. The difficulty of students in reading is not only problem, yet there is another factor of students in comprehension reading. So one of the considered as the important factor influenced their reading is their critical thinking skill.

C. Limitation of the Problem

The problems of this study were limited to critical thinking skill in relation to reading comprehension skill of the eleventh Grade Students of Senior High School of Kharisma Bangsa SMA Kharisma Bangsa, academic year of 20152016.

D. Formulation of the Problem

Based on the limitation of the problem above, the problem of this study is formulated into following question: Is there any significant relationship between critical thinking skill and reading comprehension skill of descriptive text of the eleventh grade students of SMA Kharisma Bangsa, academic year 20152016.

E. Objective of the Study

In line with the problem formulated above, the objective of this study is to describe the relationship between critical thinking skill and reading comprehension skill of descriptive text text at the eleventh grade students of SMA Kharisma Bangsa, academic year 20152016.

F. Significance of the Study

This study is aimed to describe the relationship between critical thinking skill and reading comprehension skill. The result of this study is expected to be useful for: 1. Students The result of this research will give some information for the students, especially students of SMA Kharisma Bangsa about their critical thinking skill and reading comprehension skill. Hopefully, it can be the reflection of them, so that they can improve their reading comprehension skill. 2. Teachers The result of the study can give information to the teacher about the correlation between critical thinking skill and reading comprehension skill. The teacher can improve their teaching and learning process in reading through some media and method that can help students improves their critical thinking and their reading skill. 3. Other Researchers The result of this research will be useful for other researchers who will conduct the research in the same field. It can be a consideration as well as a recommendation of the other research in case they will carry out any further research in the same field.