strategies that can be implemented in classroom activities in teaching reading comprehension 1988.
2.2.4 Reading Comprehension
Reading comprehension is a process that involves meaningful construction of an author‘s message by the use of prior knowledge, especially the knowledge of
language. It means that reading comprehension as a process of negotiating, understanding between the reader and the writer Anderson 2003. Students
comprehend the text through t rying guessing words‘ meaning and then trying to
connect with the sentence context, when they can not find the medium to help them guessing the words‘ meaning it is impossible for them to get information
from the text. Reading is about understanding written texts. It is complex activity that
involves both perception and thought. Reading consists of two related processes: word recognition and comprehension. Word recognition refers to the process of
perceiving how written symbols correspond to one‘s spoken language. Comprehension is the process of making sense of word, sentences and connected
text. Readers typically use of background knowledge, vocabulary, grammatical knowledge, experience with text and other strategies to help them understand
written text. Learning to read is an important educational goal. For children and adults, the ability to read open up new worlds and opportunities. It enables us to
gain new knowledge, enjoy literature Bernhardt, 1991: 6. Deal with the explanation above, it explains about the importance of
reading comprehension in the process of learning. People know that reading is
their beginning way to learn much knowledge, through reading people can open their mind about the world and expand their knowledge. That is how people call
that comprehension in reading is very important for them, without reading comprehension skill they cannot understand what they read.
2.2.5 Characteristics of Junior High School Students
According to Amstrong 1983:30, certain psychological and physiological characteristics in the 11 to 14 years old growth requires a set of educational
conditions in the school. In addition, Callahan and Clark 1997:7 states that adolescence, is a period of change, of new experiences, 23 of learning new roles,
of uncertainty, and instability and doubly one the most trying times in life. Harmer 2001:30 argues that teenagers, if they were engaged, had a great
capacity to learn, a great potential for creativity, and a passionate commitment to
things which interested them.
As the researcher had mentioned above, Junior High School students are in a phase where they love to be involved in an activities which interesting them. In
this case the role of the teacher is facilitating and giving them as many as interactive and interesting teaching strategies for them in the learning activity.
Students of Junior High school have special characteristic that make them different from younger and older students. It is essential for teachers to understand
their students‘ characteristics, so that they will be able to design the appropriate
and adequate programs to fit the particular requirements of individuals in this age group. The range age of Junior High School students varied between 11 to 14
years old. They are in the process of changing from children to adolescent. They
are usually less motivated; and they present outright problems. It is widely accepted that one of the key issues in teenagers in the search for individual
identity. It makes them like challenges, peer approval, and being forced among classmate and friends.
As the result, students of Junior High School need to be given special treatment as strategies which make them love what they do, and feeling motivated
in reading class. Involving them directly in the learning activities give energy motivation to learn the lesson in the learning process enjoy fully.
2.2.6 Picture Matching Game
