108 Moreover, this activity was enjoyable, so that the students joined the
activity enthusiastically and actively. 3
Building connection between the students‘ prior knowledge and the new material was successful. Conducting questioning and answering
session, predicting the content of the text through the pictures and the title of the text, and scanning the text to check the students‘ predictions
were main activities done in helping the students to build connection between their prior knowledge and the new material. Those activities
were successful in conne cting the students‘ prior knowledge to the
English texts given. 4
Comprehending the new material was done by helping the students to find the main idea of each paragraph and doing some tasks related to
the text given. As the students could do the tasks well, it could be said that they were successful in comprehending the new material.
C. General Findings
Considering the findings in Cycle II that all actions were successfully done at improving the students‘ reading comprehension, the researcher and
the collaborator agreed to end the research in this cycle. The summary of the students‘ improvement in teaching and learning process of reading during the
implementation of Cycle I and Cycle II could be seen in the following table.
109
Table 5: The Summary of the Studen ts‟ Improvement in Teaching and
Learning Process of Reading during the Implementation of Cycle I and Cycle II
Before the Actions After Cycle I
After Cycle II
Students had low vocabulary mastery.
Students‘ could explore many words related to
the topic. St
udents‘ vocabulary
related to the topic was richer than before.
Students were not interested
in the
activities in
the teaching
and learning process of
reading. The activities in the
teaching and learning reading were varied, so
that it could attract the s
tudents‘ interest and attention to the lesson.
The activities
in the
teaching and
learning reading were challenging
and varied, so that the students‘ interest and
attention to the lesson improved.
The pre-reading
activities were
ignored There
were many
activities in pre reading stages, so that those
activities could help the students to access their
prior knowledge and connect it to the new
material. The activities in pre-
reading stage
was improved,
e.g., by
conducting vocabulary
game. It could create an enjoyable lesson. It was
also more effective in activating the students‘
schema. There
was no
teaching media in the
process of
teaching and
learning reading. The process of teaching
and learning reading used
slides, which
contained pictures as the media.
The process of teaching and learning reading used
slides which contained pictures as the media.
However,
the pictures
were more attractive and varied in comparison to
the pictures in Cycle I.
The teacher did not give enough chance
for the student to express and share
ideas
about the
topic of the lesson. Questioning
and answering session about
the topic of the lesson gave the students more
chances to share and express their ideas. The
students
were enthusiastic
in answering
the researcher‘s questions
related to the topic. Students were accustomed
to express and share their ideas about the lesson
soon after the researcher told the topic of the
lesson.
continued
110 continued
Before the Actions After Cycle I
After Cycle II
The teacher seldom related
the stu
dents‘ background
knowledge to the text given.
Asking questions
about the students‘ experiences related to
the topic which was helped
by the
availability of pictures, was done to relate the
students‘ background knowledge to the text
given. The
use of
attractive pictures,
which were
closely related to the topic and
the text,
asking questions
about the
students‘ experiences
related to the topic, helped the students to relate their
background knowledge to the text given.
Translating each
sentence in the text was the activity
mostly done
in understanding
an English text.
Such activities
as finding the general
idea of
each paragraph,
guessing the
meaning of
difficult words, helped the
students to
understand the text. The students found it easier
to understand the text by finding the main idea of
each
paragraph. The
students‘ ability in finding the general idea of a
paragraph improved.
The students found difficulties
in comprehending
English texts. The students felt at
ease in comprehending the text.
The students felt at ease in comprehending the text.
The mistakes in doing the comprehensions tasks were
lesser than before.
The students‘
involvement in
reading class was low.
The students
were actively joining the
lesson. However, some of them made noises
and did not participate well in their groups.
The students
were enthusiastic
joining the
lesson. They showed better involvement
in each
activity done during the process of teaching and
learning reading.
The students who made noises
during the lesson were lesser than before.
To support the qualitative data, the researcher conducted some tests in order to measure the improvement of students‘ reading comprehension. The
tests were pre-test, that was conducted on Thursday, September 26
th
2013, achievement test I, that was conducted on Monday, October 10
th
2013,
111 achievement test II, that was conducted on Tuesday, October 22
nd
2013, and post-test that was conducted on Thursday, October 24
th
2013. The summary of the students‘ results on the tests could be seen in the following table.
Table 6:
The Summary of the Students‟ Results on the Four Tests Descriptive Statistics
N Minimum Maximum
Mean Std. Deviation
Pre test 30
4.00 6.50
5.0500 0.63109
Post test 30
4.66 7.66
6.3077 0.61185
Achievement test I 30
5.00 9.00
7.0323 1.01600
Achievement test II 30
6.00 9.00
7.7667 0.77385
Valid N listwise 30
Based on the table above, the students‘ mean scores in achievement test II was higher than the students‘ mean scores in achievement test I. The
students‘ mean scores in post-test was also higher than the students‘ mean scores in pre-
test. From the result, it could be concluded that the students‘ reading scores improved from pre-test to post-test and from achievement test I
to achievement test II. Furthermore, the standard deviation in post-test was lower than the
standard deviation in post-test. As said by Burns 2010: 128 that the SD standard deviation tells you how each score deviates on average from the
mean. Because the SD averages things in this way, it is more accurate than the range in showing how scores are spread out, and if there are any outliers, their
effects are minimized. From the statement, it could be concluded that the students‘ reading scores were homogenous. There were no outliers or extreme
