Identification of the Problems

8

F. Significances of the Study

This study is expected to give benefits to some parties. 1. Theoretically, the result of the research can be used as the reference for other researchers in developing theme-based storybooks for reading comprehension based on English textbooks. 2. Practically, the findings of the research will be useful for: a. English teachers of the junior high school level This research will help English teachers to provide more reading materials for reading comprehension that can vary the teaching activities by using storybooks. b. Grade VII students of the junior high school Grade VII students of the junior high school are expected to acquire more knowledge and develop their reading comprehension, so their English proficiency will be improved. 3. Methodologically, the process and the outcomes of this study are expected to be able to inspire other researchers to do research on the similar topics. 9

CHAPTER II LITERATURE REVIEW AND CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK

A. Theoretical Description 1. Reading

a. Nature of Reading and Comprehension

Among the four macro-skills of English namely listening, speaking, reading, and writing, reading comes in the third order and is included as one of the receptive skills besides listening. Reading is concerned with an activity responding to a text by understanding the meaning of the sentences composing the text. Although it is considered as a receptive skill, reading involves brain activeness of the readers in the process of understanding a text. Because of that, reading is definitely cannot be separated with what is called as comprehension. Richards and Schmidt 2002 assume that reading is an activity of perceiving a written text in order to understand its contents that can be done silently silent reading. Understanding its contents leads to having a full comprehension about the text. Moreover, comprehending a text involves not only understanding the language of the text at a word level, a sentence level and a whole-text level. In reading, as readers read a text, they also manage to comprehend it by understanding word by word meaning and constructing it