Identification of the Problem

7 and efficient method in order that the teaching vocabulary is successful. If someone can master vocabulary well, she or he will be able to promote fluency, boost comprehension, improve achievement, and enhance thinking and communication. According to Bromley 2004:3-4 states that vocabulary holds some important roles in teaching-learning process. They are as follows: 1 Promoting fluency: Students who recognize and understand many words, read more quickly and easily than those with smaller vocabulary. Fluent readers read at a faster rate, process more material, more quickly and have better comprehension than less fluent leaders. 2 Boosting comprehension: Vocabulary knowledge strongly influences comprehension. On a component analysis of comprehension, word meanings were found to make up 74 of comprehension. 3 Improving achievement: A large vocabulary means a large fund of conceptual knowledge which makes academic learning easier. Students with large vocabulary score higher on achievement tests than those with small vocabulary. 4 Enhancing thinking and communication: Words are tools for analyzing, inferring, evaluating and reasoning. A large vocabulary allows for communicating in ways that are precise, powerful, persuasive, and interesting. 8

D. Formulation of the Problem

Based on the problem limitation above that refers to contribution, the problems of this research are formulated in the form of correlation as follows: Is there any positive correlation between vocabulary mastery and reading comprehension of the eighth grade students of SMP Negeri 4 Wates in the academic year of 20132014?

E. Objectives of the Research

Based on the problem statement above, the objectives of this research is to know whether there is a positive correlation between vocabulary mastery and reading comprehension of the eighth grade students of SMP Negeri 4 Wates in the academic year of 20132014.

F. Significance of the Research

There are some advantages that hopefully could be gained from this study: 1. The result of this research provides the writer an understanding whether the students’ vocabulary mastery have the contribution to the students’ reading comprehension. 2. It is expected that this study will stimulate other researchers to conduct studies in similar fields. 3. For English teachers, the result of this study will hopefully be an input to improve teaching learning process especially in teaching and learning reading s kill by giving more attention on the improvement of students’ vocabulary mastery, and students’ motivation in learning process.