of Grade VIII Students at SMP N 9 Magelang through Directed Reading Thinking Activity DRTA in the Academic Year of 20142015.
B. Identification of the problem
Based on the background problem on the research study, there are some factors that influence students’ reading comprehension. They are teacher’s
factor, students’ factor and teaching and learning process factor. The first factor that influences students’ reading comprehension is related
to the teacher. A teacher has important roles in running the teaching and learning processes as mentioned by Harmer 2001:57 that all roles, after all,
aim to facilitate the students’ progress in some way or the other. Hence, in teaching and learning reading, a teacher should be able to facilitate the students
so that students will be able to achieve the goal of reading. A teacher’s ability and proficiency in managing and facilitating class will
encourage students’ development and provide the encouraging atmosphere for them. Besides, the teacher should be able to determine the teaching suitable
and feasible strategies for the teaching and learning process. Implementing reading strategies, helping learners to understand the text,
and managing the use of strategies are considered to be the important aspects of the teaching of second or foreign language reading skills. Related to the
te acher’s factors which are classroom management and reading strategies used
by the teacher, it seemed that in the observed classes, the teacher should be put more attempt and attention in conducting encouraging classroom management
and applying appropriate reading strategies to develop students’ reading
comprehension. The second factor that influences students’ reading comprehension is the
students themselves. Students are the target of teaching and learning process. There are 29 students in class VIIIG and each student absolutely has different
levels of proficiency in English. Some of the students have good proficiency, and the others are just fair, even low. As mentioned earlier, their lacks of
vocabulary hinder them to understand the text easily. They suddenly dropped their motivation when they saw a long text before they read it. The students
also find difficult to distinguish between the main idea and the detail information. They also feel difficult to distinguish between the detail
information and the main idea of the text. All of the VIII G students’ problems
should be taken seriously by determining the most suitable treatment. The third factor that influences students’ reading comprehension is
related to the process of teaching and learning. It is viewed from the classroom management, some students were busy talking with their friends, and some
others were busy doing their own activities while the teacher explaining the lesson. There was no significant action to make the students pay attention to
the lesson and stop doing their own activities. It makes the process of teaching and learning is slightly disrupted by the noises from the students.
Not only from the view of classroom management which influences the process of teaching and learning, but also from the activities in the reading
classroom. In reading activities, students need sufficient input, the appropriate strategies and activities that can encourage them to comprehend the texts. The
observed class has a lack of these strategies and activities in reading. The students read the text silently by themselves and then simply answered the
following questions based on the text without any further explanation to go deep with the ideas of the text.
Sometimes, some students did not know the meaning of the question and there were no strategies to deal with this problem. The teacher tended to give
all of the meaning of the difficult word without trying to invite students to find the meaning by themselves. Because there are no further strategies and also
activities, students have no opportunities to maintain their reading comprehension abilities of the texts.
C. Delimitation of the Problem
The problem in this study is delimited to the effort to improve the students’ reading comprehension through DR-TA of class 8G students at
SMPN 9 Magelang. Regarding to the teaching and learning process of reading in the grade VIII students at SMPN 9 Magelang, it can be seen that the students
only read the text and then answered the question that followed the text in the reading class without any further supporting activities that can help them to be
more involved with the text. There are insufficient supplementary media, as well, to make the students become more focus and interested during the
reading class. Moreover, there is lack of strategies which are implemented
during the class. Strategies in reading are needed and they are different among one reader to another and the strategies help students in interpreting and
reacting to the texts. If the reading strategies are not suitable, it is possible that the students
will have difficulties in understanding what they have been read and it means that they are failed to comprehend the texts. That is why strategies in reading,
in this study Directed Reading Thinking Activity, is highly important to maintain the students’ reading comprehension by giving them opportunity to
solve the problems. Anyway, all of the components needed to maintain the students’ reading comprehension deserve to be considered implemented during
the reading class.
D. Formulation of the problem
1. How can Directed Reading Thinking Activity DRTA be used to improve reading comprehension of grade VIII students at SMP N 9
Magelang?
E. Objective of the research
In line with the formulation of the problem, this research aims to improve the students’ reading comprehension abilities of eight grade students in SMPN 9
Magelang through Directed Reading-Thinking Activity DR-TA.
F. Significance of the research
1. The research finding can be implemented by the English teacher of grade VIII at SMPN 9 Magelang to improve the grade VIII
students’ reading comprehension abilities.
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