Background of the Problems

2 comprehend and to respond the meaning of short functional texts and essays in their daily life in order to access knowledge. However, the facts show that the teaching and learning process of reading in SMP has not reached the objective. There are still many SMP graduates who fail to get some important information from reading English texts. Some even still have very limited vocabularies which can be seen from their vocabulary mastery when they learn at SMP. Those pr oblems arise from the students’ failure to comprehend English texts in the teaching and learning process of reading. Such problems were also found in SMP Muhammadiyah 8 Yogyakarta students, especially grade IX students in the academic year of 20142015. Many of them had low reading comprehension ability. They had difficulties in answering some questions related to the text even they did not understand what the next was talking about. This condition became worse when the text was long because students also complained when reading along English text. They often asked to discuss the texts the teacher gave classically just after they got them because they had difficulties in comprehending the texts by themselves. They realized they needed teacher’s support to help them understand the texts. Some of the students were lazy to check the difficult words in the dictionary. They preferred to ask to the teacher the meaning of the difficult words they found than to check them out in the dictionary. They did not realize the advantage of checking the meaning of those difficult words by themselves. By checking 3 difficult words by themselves, they were able to remember them longer than they just asked to the teacher. The teaching strategy that was used in the classroom was also monotonous. In the reading lesson, students were often asked to read a text then answer questions related to the text. This made students bored and lazy to participate in the teaching and learning process. They usually made themselves busy with their own activities, such as chatting with their friends, playing games, drawing something in their notebook, or just imagining something. Such a situation made students have low reading comprehension ability because they did not participate well in the teaching and learning process. From the above discussion, the researcher was interested in conducting research on improving students’ reading comprehension through recognizing text organization for the nine grade students of SMP Muhammadiyah 8 Yogyakarta in the academic year of 20142015

B. Identification of the Problems

In reference to the observation the researcher conducted, there were five factors influencing the grade nine students’ reading comprehending ability at SMP Muhammadiyah 8 Yogyakarta. They were the stu dents’ vocabulary mastery, the learning materials, the students’ interest, the students’ motivation, and the teaching strategy that is used in the classroom. The first factor influencing the grade eighth students’ reading comprehension ability at SMP Muhammadiyah 8 Yogyakarta was having low vocabulary 4 mastery. It became worse when the text that the teacher gave was long. The students did not accustomed to guess the meaning of the difficult words they found than to check them out in the dictionary so, they had difficulties in answering the questions related to the text and did not comprehend the text well. The second factor was related to the students’ interest in joining some activities during the teaching and learning of reading in the classroom. This problem was caused by the process of teaching and learning of reading what tented to be monotonous. The teacher only focused on testing students’ ability to translate and answer the questions. It made many of the students laid their head on the table during the teaching and learning process of reading. Such as condition indicated that they were not interested in joining the teaching and learning process. The next factor was the students’ motivation. They often complained when they get a long English text. They did not consider it as a challenge but a burden. They often asked to discuss the text classically rather than to read and comprehend it by themselves. They asked the teacher to discuss just after they got it. The last external factor was the teaching strategy that was used by the teacher. It tended to be monotonous. It was not interesting enough for students. During reading class she often asked the student to read the text then answer the questions. Such a kind a situation made the students got bored of participating in the class. The further effect of this situation was that students did not improve their reading comprehension ability.