Generally, CIRC tries to involve all students to work together with the teacher.
B. Related Study
There is a related study about the effect of CIRC to improve students’ reading comprehension. It is the study of improving teaching
and learning in terms of reading and writing. It was conducted by Annida Nurul Faiza Asni, an English student of Yogyakarta State University, in
2012 to the eighth grade students of MTs YAPI Pakem, Sleman. The study was action research and had influence on helping students in
reading. The result of the study showed some positive effects of CIRC in
the teaching reading process. Although the study concerned to the teaching-learning of reading and writing, it also had effect in the reading
ability of students. First, CIRC promoted pleasure reading by having oral reading activities and enhanced students’ reading skills by having some
practices. Seco nd, CIRC increased students’ motivation and confidence
because of the existence of reading groups. CIRC also improved students’ involvement by having the group work activity.
Thus, this study was successful in improving the teaching- learning of reading and the
students’ reading ability. It was proved by the result of post-test done by the students. Their reading ability was
improved in Cycle 1, the cycle of reading. It was also due to the appropriate learning materials and the reading strategies which were
taught directly by the teacher. Besides, this study also tried to make changes in term of reading comprehension such as guessing the meaning
of unfamiliar words, skimming, scanning, and summarizing through the use of CIRC. In the past, CIRC was also done by many English teachers
as stated by Slavin. Those are the proof of CIRC in the area of reading, especially reading comprehension.
In connection to the related study above which focused on reading and writing ability, this study only focused on reading
comprehension. This study tried to improve the students’ reading
comprehension ability through CIRC in many interesting activities. The activities were done to engage and motivate students in order to make
them enjoyable in reading comprehension activities.
C. Conceptual Framework
Reading is a receptive skill which has to be learned by students in Indonesia, especially in Junior High School. It has been stated in the
standard competencies of English for SMP students in Indonesia by Depdiknas. Reading comprehension is also included in the competencies
that should be mastered by the students. This research focuses on the problems from the teaching method in the
classroom. The problems came from the less effective teaching method. It led to the low achievement of reading comprehension owned by the
students. In this case, students of SMP IT Abu Bakar still have low ability in reading comprehension.
Cooperative integrated reading and composition CIRC is the teaching method of this research. It is one of alternative ways to improve the
students’ reading comprehension. It has proved by many teachers in the past that CIRC is an effective method to teach reading comprehension to
students, especially middle school students. There are some activities of CIRC which are able to help students in
understanding text such as identifying topic, the characters of the story, etc. The use of reading groups is also able to overcome the problems that
have been mentioned before because it can make students excited in reading activities. Students work in pairs and do reading tasks together
with their friends. Students learn how to comprehend a text through word meaning, spelling, and retell the text to their friends in a group. The main
purposes of CIRC are also relevant to solve the problem for example the purpose of motivating students to read aloud and comprehend the text.
As CIRC is a part of cooperative learning method, there are some advantages of using cooperative learning to solve problems of learning
language. It has many various methods to be done by students and teacher, one of them is CIRC. It involves both of them, students and teacher. The
form of cooperative work can be applied in many groups of students. It is easy for students to learn reading skills as well. The teacher will also be
more confident than as usual because the use of cooperative work or group work. All students involve in the
learning process by the teacher’s
