The cycle of predicting, reading, and provingdisproving continues until the text is completely read. Then, the teacher closes the lesson with a review of the content
of the reading and a discussion of the prediction strategies students should use as they read a text.
B. Reviews of Related Studies
This part is devoted to report related studies carried out to improve the reading comprehension ability using Directed Reading-Thinking Activity DR-
TA. The action chosen to implement, DR-TA, is not a new strategy in reading instruction. It has been used by several teachers to teach students reading
comprehension. There have been many studies confirming the effectiveness of DR-TA in teaching reading comprehension such as the studies by Riley 2006,
Stahl 2008 and Odwan 2012. The studies are summarized as follows. Riley 2006 investigated the effect of directed reading thinking activity on
low reading achievement of the first grade students. The study emphasized the importance of using directed reading thinking activity to increase achievement
and promote thinking among low achievers. The study results indicated the possibility of correcting most of the errors made by students while reading when
they used directed reading thinking activity. Stahl 2008 examined the effects of Directed Reading-Thinking Activity
DR-TA along with the other two instructional methods of comprehension, Picture Walks PW and Know-Want-Learn KWL. The participants of her study
were 31 second grade students from two demographically similar schools which
then were put into eight groups of four. These three instructional models did not happen in the same group. Each group had a certain instructional model to use. At
the end of the study, DR-TA outweighed both the PW and KWL when it came to students recalling information and answering questions correctly. The results of
the study indicated that DR-TA and PW yielded statistically significant effects on reading growth. 68 of the students also reported that DR-TA and PW helped
them to read more fluently and remember more text information. Another study by Odwan 2012 investigated the effect of Directed
Reading-Thinking Activity using cooperative learning on English secondary stage students’ reading comprehension in Jordan. The mean of post-test scores
employed in the experimental study were higher for the experimental group than that of the control group. It means students taught by Directed Reading-Thinking
Activity through cooperative learning tended to get higher scores on reading
comprehension.
Based on those research findings, it can be assumed that DR-TA contributes positively to the development of
students’ reading ability. Considering the problems concerning reading instruction described in the background, the
researcher is interested in making a study to improve the reading comprehension ability of the eighth grade students of SMPN 1 Yogyakarta.
C. Conceptual Framework
