6. Teaching Reading Comprehension in Junior High School
a. Aims and Objectives Curriculum
Reading comprehension is a required component of all middle school language arts curriculum. Middle school students should have
adequate decoding skills by the time they reach middle school or junior high school. However, many students would not fully and
accurately understand what they read. Reading comprehension skills are necessary for being successful in understanding English as a
foreign language. Thus, reading comprehension strategies should be taught and practiced diligently.
Teaching reading to Junior High School students in Indonesia is reasonable. Based on the curriculum of English for Junior High
School students, there is a standard competency with some basic competencies in it related to reading skill. Here are the competencies
stated by Depdiknas 2006 which should be learned by students: Standard Competency
Understanding the meaning of simple short essays in the form of descriptive and recount to interact with the social circumstances.
Basic Competencies 1.
Reading aloud and meaningful functional text and simple short essay in the form of descriptive and recount with acceptable
expression, extrusion, and intonation which is related to the social circumstance.
2. Responding the meaning of simple short functional text
accurately, fluently, and acceptable which is related to the social circumstance.
3. Responding the meaning and the rhetoric step of simple short
essay accurately, fluently, and acceptable which is related to the social circumstance in the form of descriptive and recount text
In short, in the first semester there are two forms of texts namely the descriptive and recount texts. They are taught to the students at
junior high schools Depdiknas, 2006: 278. That is why reading comprehension needs to be improved because it has stated in the
English curriculum for Junior High School in Indonesia.
b. Characteristics of Teenagers
The learner here is students of Junior High School or middle school. They are considered as teenagers. It should be different about
the way to teach English to them because the characteristic of teenagers is different from adults. Some experts have different
opinion about the characteristic of teens. Based on Brown 2001: 92, t
he “terrible teens” are an age of transition, confusion, self-consciousness, growing, and changing
bodies and minds. Teens are between childhood and adulthood, and therefore a very special set of considerations applies to teaching them.
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