8 research, the researcher only focuses on the materials of narrative text for junior
high school students on the eighth grade based on KTSP Curriculum.
2.1.1 Word Comprehension
Comprehending the words in reading process is important because it is the basic to comprehend the whole text. By comprehending the words, the students
can understand the whole text easily. In the same way, Gillet and Temple 1990:99 state that it is important for the students in reading comprehension to
understand word meaning, because it helps them to comprehend the text. So, in reading a text, the students have to know the meaning of the words based on the
text they read. Wood 1991:57 states that reading improves vocabulary and a larger
vocabulary improves reading. It means that when the students are reading, they will rich of vocabularies and by having many vocabularies they can perform well
on reading. This is the examples of word comprehension in a narrative text entitled “
The Smartest Parrot ”
Instruction: Read the text carefully then answer the following questions
The Smartest Parrot
At the first, the man was very nice to the bird but then he got very angry. “You stupid bird” pointed the man to the parrot. “Why can’t you say the word?
Say Catano Or I will kill you” the man said angrily. Although he tried hard to teach, the parrot would not say it. Then the man got so angry and shouted to the
bird over and over; “Say Catano or I’ll kill you”. The bird kept not to say the word of Catano.
1. The underlined word has the same meaning with the word…. a. Greedy
b. Afraid c. Kind
d. Patient The answer of the question above is c.
Taken from scribed.com200812
9 Explanation: It is stated in dictionary that the word nice has the same meaning
with the word kind. So, the best answer of question number 1 is C.
2.1.2 Sentence Comprehension
After comprehending the word meaning in reading activity, the students should comprehend the sentence meaning as well. Wood 1991:151 states that
sentence is the smaller unit in the material that expresses a complete idea. In addition, Grellet 1996:15 states that it is better to understand the meaning of
some words constructed in sentences than translating the sentences word by word. It means that the students do not need to translate word by word in reading a text
because when they just translate a sentence word by word, they will face some difficulties in understanding the writer’s idea. It can be said that, understanding
sentences is important to support the effective reading activity. It is not only translating a sentence word by word, but also understanding the whole of the
sentence completely. As stated by Wood 1991:151, there are three kinds of sentences. The
first is simple sentence, the second is compound sentence, and the third is complex sentence. Simple sentence is a sentence that consists of one subject, one
verb, and it can be followed by an object or a complement. In addition, compound sentence is a sentence that consists of two or more subjects and verbs. We need to
use conjunction to join two or more sentences. The last type of sentence is complex sentence. It consists of a simple sentence and several phrases. Here is an
example of sentence comprehension
10 Instruction: Read the text carefully then answer the following question
Jonah
Once upon a time there was a village in North Israel. All the people lived peacefully there. One of them was Jonah. Jonah lived with his parents. They loved
him very much. In the north of Israel was Syria. It had powerful knights. They were very cruel and liked to invade other countries.
1. It had powerful knights line 3. The underlined word refers to? a. Israel.
b. The village. c. Syiria.
d. Jonah’s village. Answer: a
Taken from http:bos-sulap.blogspot.com
Explanation: It is stated directly in the previous sentence that in the north of Israel was Syria. Thus, the word it is a pronoun of Syria.
2.1.3 Paragraph Comprehension
