Delimitation of the Problem Formulation of the Problem Objective of the Research

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F. Significance of the Research

This research was conducted to improve the reading comprehension ability of students in grade VIII of SMP IT Abu Bakar Yogyakarta through the use of cooperative integrated reading and composition. Therefore, the result of the research is expected to be an important piece of information for the people who are concerned with the language teaching and learning, especially the following parties: 1. Yogyakarta State University As an institution concerned with the provision of teachers, this research could give information about the use of cooperative integrated reading and composition in the reading lesson. The institution could get more insights about the alternative method to teach reading comprehension. 2. SMP students The overall process of this research can help the students in learning reading comprehension and improve their achievement in English. 3. Teachers The result of the research could be taken as considerations to teach and learn reading effectively, particularly in motivating students to make reading as one of their habits. After knowing the result of the research, the English teachers are expected to improve their technique in cooperative 11 learning. Next, the result of this research is expected to bring improvements which can be used to manage groups in cooperative learning activities in reading class as the stimulus of the students for their improvement. 7

CHAPTER II LITERATURE REVIEW AND CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK

This chapter presents theories which underlie this research. The discussion of this chapter is divided into two main parts. Those are a literature review and conceptual framework. In the literature review, the researcher discusses some theories and the research studies which are relevant to the topic. Related studies explore the same researches which were done by other researchers before. In the conceptual framework, the researcher relates the theory to the study.

A. Literature Review

1. The Definition of Reading

Reading is a receptive skill which should be learned well by students. Reading has many kinds of definition based on some experts. Reading is usually defined as a communication between a reader and a text but some experts have their own details about reading. Richards and Schmidt 2002: 443 state that reading is an activity to understand a written text. Reading in this case involves written symbols. This definition seems to be the same as what is said by Celce Murcia 2001: 119. He defines reading skill as a process of trying to understand a written text. The reader has to perform a number of simultaneous tasks: decode the message by recognizing the written sign, interpret the message by assigning meaning to the string of words and understand what the author’s intention was. While, based on Alderson 2000: 3, reading is the process of the interaction between a reader and a