T1 112007133 Full text

Investigation of Students’ Reading Strategies in Language Learning of
SMA Negeri 3 Salatiga

THESIS
Submitted in Partial Fulfillment
Of the Requirement for Degree of
Sarjana Pendidikan

Dinar Kurnia Kusumastuti
112007133

ENGLISH DEPARTMENT
FACULTY OF LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE
SATYA WACANA CHRISTIAN UNIVERSITY
SALATIGA
2013

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Investigation of Students’ Reading Strategies in Language Learning of
SMA Negeri 3 Salatiga

Dinar Kurnia Kusumastuti

Abstract
Reading strategies is an important thing to do in order to succeed in reading English texts.
By doing these strategies, students are likely to fully comprehend the meaning derived
from the English texts they read. Zhang (1993) stated that reading strategies were divided

into three categories. They were cognitive, metacognitive and compensation. The research
question of this is what strategies are adopted by high school students in reading English
texts. Thus, this paper investigated what reading strategies adopted by the participants.
The participants of this study were one hundred and ten (110) students of SMA Negeri 3
Salatiga who were at the X, XI and XII grades. The method used for this study was
descriptive method to gain broader perspectives on high school students about what
strategy adopted and to identify the overall average strategy use. To obtain the result of the
study, close-ended questionnaire based on the interactive model of reading process and the
information offered by Weinstein and Mayer (1986), Pintrich (1999), and Oxford (1990)
was used. The result showed that the most frequently used strategy by the students of
SMA Negeri 3 Salatiga was metacognitive. In contrast, compensation reading strategy was
the least frequently used strategy. It was because because students likely had the nature to
do spontaneous metacognitive reading strategies to help them understand the English
texts.
Keywords: L2 reading, reading strategies, language learning, young learners.

Introduction
It is a fact that English has now become an important language in the world. Since
English is an international language, English is spoken everywhere and thus English is being
taught in almost all countries across the globe, including, Indonesia. Learning English as an

L2 which means English is not a mother tongue. It usually covers speaking, listening, writing
and reading. Based on my experience I had when I was in High School, in this research, I
focused only in reading. Reading was chosen as a focus in this paper because I believed it
was an effective way to acquire new language. Reading helps ESL/EFL learners build their

vocabulary, leading them to enduring learning and improvement in L2 learning skills
(Carrell, 1989).
The L2 learners have several problems in acquiring English texts through reading.
One problem is it takes times for the learners to find out the meaning of each word. This
problem was also been proven by Shang (2010) on her research that the L2 learners
approached reading passively. She also added that learners tended to rely on the bilingual
dictionary and spending long hours translating each vocabulary they have not know.
In relation to Shang’s (2010) research about the problems faced by L2 learners in
dealing with English reading texts, it reminds me of the time when I was in senior high
school. I found it was so difficult to have a good understanding in reading English texts. My
teacher merely asked us to read the textbooks without considering whether we understood the
meaning behind the passage or not. My teacher did not even teach us the strategies to succeed
in comprehending English texts for L2 learners like me, which I thought the texts given were
really difficult to understand at that time. We were not asked to find the meaning we could
imply from the context, we were only asked to read and to translate the difficult words. As a

result, my achievement was low. The questions of my study emerged now was “How to
succeed in reading English texts?” The aim of my study was to investigate what reading
strategies were adopted by students of SMA Negeri 3 Salatiga in reading English texts.
ESL reading research has long been concerned with various aspects that affect reading
comprehension. One of them is reading strategies. The main focus of the bulk of this research
is to determine how reading strategies contribute to effective reading (Alsamadani, 2011).
Since the late 1970's, ESL researchers have begun to recognize the relationship between
reading strategies and successful and unsuccessful second language reading in L1 and/or L2
(Block, 1986; Jimenez, Garcia, and Pearson, 1995, Anderson and Roit, 1993; Block, 1993;

Palincsar and Brown, 1984; Paris, Cross, and Lipson, 1984; Pearson and Fielding, 1991,
Carrell, 1998).
The study was conducted to describe students’ most frequent used reading
strategy.The result of this study can be beneficial to both L2 learners and teachers. The L2
learners can apply what is the best reading strategy suit to their characteristics in reading L2
texts. By having knowledge of what is the appropriate reading strategy for them, the L2
learners are expected to be able to apply that strategy. Finally, the students are believed to be
successful readers and also have a better comprehension in reading L2 texts.
The advantage that teachers can gain through this study is that the teachers will be
more aware of the reading strategies existence. Later on, teachers are expected to not only ask

their students to read and find the meaning of L2 texts but more to teach the students on how
to comprehend the texts using reading strategies. By introducing reading strategies to the
students, they will likely acquire greater performances in reading. Besides, the teachers are
also expected to be more creative in providing several models of reading activities using
reading strategies to help the students acquiring the L2 texts better.

Literature Review
According to Karbalaei (2010), “reading is the kind of process in which one needs to
not only understand its direct meaning, but also comprehend its implied ideas”. If that is the
case, it can be considered that reading English texts is not only an activity that is done once in
order to know the meaning of every the words or phrases used in the texts. It is more to
comprehend the texts or passage as the whole or the hidden meaning derived from the texts or
passages.

Reading L2 is not an easy thing to do for L2 learner because reading English texts is
nota monolingual event. So, it involves other languages.L2 readers tend to translate L2 text
into their mother tongue word by word. The influence of the L1 on the learner’s performance
in a given target language is called “substratum transfer” (Odlin,1989, p.169). Odlin (1989,
p.27) defines transfer as “the influence resulting from similarities and differences between the
target language and any other languages (emphasis added) that has been previously (and

perhaps imperfectly) acquired.
Moreover, reading in L2 is also complex, dynamic and multidimensional (Alderson,
2000) as one the factors is it involves interactions among the reader’s interlanguage
competence. The reader may get lost for their attempt to understanding the information
implicitly carried in L2 texts if they do not optimize their reading ability. Therefore, reading
strategies need to be available when reading in second language (1984). The purposes of
reading strategies are to have general knowledge, get a specific detail, find the main idea or
theme, learn, remember, delight, summarize, and do research (Hyland, 1990).
The role of strategy use in reading comprehension has been a topic of discussion in
some studies related to L2.It has generally been found that successful L2 readers know how
to use appropriate strategies to enhance text comprehension (Alderson, 2000).In the literature
of reading strategies, three major categories are mentioned: cognitive, metacognitive and
compensation.
Discussion of reading strategies as top-down or bottom-up appears often in research
in L2 reading strategies, a contrast that runs parallel to global and local strategies (Abbott,
2006; Barnett, 1988; Block, 1986, 1992; Carrell, 1989; Young & Oxford, 1997). Top-down
reading strategies focus on main ideas, discourse organization, and the use of background

knowledge, while bottom-up strategies center on word level meaning, sentence structure, and
textual details.

According to Paris, Wasik & Turner (1991) a strategy means a plan selected
deliberately by the reader to accomplish a particular goal or to complete a given task.
Therefore, reading strategy can be concluded as a way or plan which is used by reader to
accomplish the meaning of a reading text. Readers develop the use of strategies and skills by
reading and writing and being given the support they need to grow in these processes (Wells,
1990).
The purpose of using reading strategies is to ease the readers in constructing the
meaning of a text. Readers who are not strategic often encounter difficulties in their reading
(Paris, Wasik, & Turner, 1991). Therefore, the appliance of reading strategies is quite
essential to help the readers knowing the true meaning behind a certain text. There are several
kinds of reading strategies which may fulfill the need of the readers in helping them
comprehending the text, they are top-bottom, bottom-up, metacognitive and cognitive and
development of vocabulary knowledge.
Reading strategies have three main characteristics. The first one is deliberate,
conscious plans, involving techniques and skills. The next is aiming to enhance reading
comprehension and overcome comprehension failures and the last characteristic is behavioral
and mental. They are of interest for what they reveal about the way readers manage their
interaction with the written text and how these strategies are related to text comprehension
(Carrell, 1989).
Reading comprehension requires the integration and application of multiple strategies

or skills. There are seven strategies. Those strategies involve memory, cognitive,
compensation, metacognitive, affective, social, and test-taking strategies (Caverly, 1997;

O’Malley, Chamot, Stewner-Manzanares, Kupper, & Russo, 1985; Oxford, 1990; Zhang,
1993).
Metacognitive strategies are defined as self-regulating thoughts that monitor cognition
while cognitive strategies process the language for the task. Metacognitive strategies are used
to regulate or monitor cognitive strategies. They check or evaluate the effectiveness of the
reading done. There are three aspects of metacognition including declarative knowledge, such
as knowing what the strategy is, procedural knowledge, such as knowing how the strategy
works and conditional knowledge, knowing why the strategy is used (Paris, Cross, & Lipson,
1984). Devine (1993) and Flavell (1981) described metacognitive strategies in reading as
strategies that act to monitor or regulate the cognitive strategies. Baker and Brown (1984)
added that metacognitive strategies include checking the outcome of any attempt to solve a
problem, planning one’s next move, monitoring the effectiveness of any attempted action,
testing, revising, and evaluating one’s strategies for learning. Devine (1993) commented that
skimming a text for key information involves the usage of cognitive strategy, whereas
assessing the effectiveness of skimming for gathering textual information would be a
metacognitive strategy. Hence, using only cognitive reading strategy to read is insufficient for
effective reading and there is a possibility that the reader may make the wrong interpretation

of the reading.
On the other hand, cognitive strategies help the reader construct meaning from the
text. Block (1986), Carrell (1989), Davis and Bistodeau (1993) cited that studies in both first
and second language reading research generally provided a binary division of cognitive
strategies as bottom-up and top-down. Aebersold and Field (1997) mentioned how the
readers’ minds repeatedly engaged in a variety of processes during reading. Readers normally
start by using the bottom-up strategies like processing information at the sentence level. This
means that they focus on identifying the meaning and grammatical category of a word,

sentence syntax, text details, and so forth. Barnett (1988) and Carrell (1989) add that while
the students are processing the information provided by each sentence, they check to see how
the information fits, using top-down strategies like background knowledge, prediction,
getting the gist of a text, and skimming.
Another strategy resulting in a successful reading comprehension is the development
of vocabulary knowledge (Caverly, 1997; Yang, 2004) which is called compensation.
Compensation strategies include skills such as inferencing, guessing while reading, or using
reference materials such as dictionaries. According to Zhang (1993), many EFL readers often
encounter the problem of unfamiliar vocabulary and unknown concepts that later become the
barrier for them to understand a text. That is why compensation is needed to help the readers
to overcome the barriers. Compensation alone emphasizes more on syntactic clues related to
grammatical structures and semantic clues involved intra- and inter sentence meaning
relationship (Sinatra and Dowd, 1992). Winstead (2004) & Zhang(1992, 1993) also added
that this strategy cannot only help readers overcome a limited vocabulary, but also help them
guess about the theme of an article.
The Study
Method
This study primarily used descriptive method to gain broader perspectives on high school
students about what strategy adopted and to identify the overall average strategy use.
Descriptive research is a type of research that is primarily concerned with describing the
nature or conditions and degree in detail of the present situation (Landman 1988:59). The
emphasis is on describing rather than on judging or interpreting. The study took place at
SMA Negeri 3 Salatiga, I chose SMA Negeri 3 Salatiga because the school gave me access
for doing the research
Participants

The study surveyed one hundred and ten (110) students of SMA Negeri 3 Salatiga.
The participants were grade X, XI, XII, so there were three classes in total. The classes
participated were chosen randomly. There were thirthy eight (38) students from grade X,
thirthy eight(38) students from grade XI IPS (social) and thirthy five (35) students from grade
XII IPA (science). The participants ranged between 15 until 17 years old. All the participants
studied English compulsorily and reading course was included. The study chose these classes
as these classes had more students compared to the other classes. Classes with more students
were chosen to maximize the data collection process because the more participants meant the
better data result.
Instruments of data collection
Closed-ended questionnaire was used for data collecting.Spillers (2012) explained
that closed ended questions are direct questions that ask for specific pieces of information
from a student. Closed-ended questions have their greatest value to obtain facts and specific
pieces of information. The questionnaire used for this study was adapted from Shang’s (2010)
research which was based on the interactive model of reading process and the information
offered by Weinstein and Mayer (1986), Pintrich (1999), and Oxford (1990). The
questionnaire was to find what strategies were adopted by high school students in reading
English texts. The students were to choose one of five contributing frequency scales of each
statement about their strategies in reading. The questionnaire (see Appendix) had tweenty one
(21) items grouped into three categories of reading strategies, cognitive (items 1 to 8),
metacognitive (items 9 to 17) and compensation strategy (items 18 to 21).
Data collection
The first step was to ask for permission to all of the English teachers whose class was
selected for the data collection session. After getting the permission, the questionnaire was

distributed at the end of the English lesson. After being given a questionnaire each student
was asked to fill it out. After the students finished filling the questionnaire, they handed the
questionnaire back. The next step was to process and analyze the data. The questionnaires
used in this study was based on Shang’s (2010) research which was emphasized on the
interactive model of reading process and the information offered by Weinstein and Mayer
(1986), Pintrich (1999), and Oxford (1990).This study used quantitative method to analyze
the data since the data collection process used a questionnaire. According to Aliaga &
Gunderson (2002), quantitative method refers to process of collecting numerical data that are
analyzed using mathematical-based methods. Therefore, Microsoft Excel was used to analyze
numeric data. The output was quantitative shown in the form of graphics and table.
Discussion
This section reports and discusses the result of students’ reading strategies in SMA
Negeri 3 Salatiga.
Figure 1: Overall result of reading strategies

Cognitive

Metacognitive

Compensation

Based on the figure above about the overall result of reading strategies adopted by
students, the most frequently used strategy was metacognitive with average of 3.47. Second
place was cognitive with average of 3.46 and the least frequently used strategy was
compensation with average of 3.31. Asshown in Figure 1, cognitive and metacognitive
reading strategies were used almost equally by the participants. Compensation strategies as
the least frequently used strategy by the students. Further description of reading strategies
used by the students is discussed in the following section. The discussion starts from the most
to the least frequently used strategies by the students.
A. Metacognitive strategy
Devine (1993) and Flavell (1981) described metacognitive strategies in reading as
strategies that act to monitor or regulate the cognitive strategies. Baker and Brown (1984)
added that metacognitive strategies include checking the outcome of any attempt to solve a
problem, planning one’s next move, monitoring the effectiveness of any attempted action,
testing, revising, and evaluating one’s strategies for learning. Metacognitive strategy was the
most frequently used reading strategy by the participants with an average of 3.47. This
strategy was distributed into nine (9) statements in the questionnaire. The statements were Q9
to Q17as presented below:
Q9: Sebelum membaca saya melihat gambar atau ilustrasi yang terdapat dalam suatu
bacaan
(Before reading, I look at the pictures of the passage.)
Q10 :Saya membaca pertanyaan-pertanyaan dahulu sebelum membaca bacaan tersebut.
(I read the questions before I read the passage.)
Q11 :Secara rutin saya membaca per minggu dan mengerjakan tugas-tugas bacaan tersebut.
(I make sure that I keep up with the weekly readings and assignments for this course.)

Q12 :Ketika membaca, saya bertanya dalam hati tentang keadaaan yang sebenarnya terjadi
tentang sebuah isi bacaan.
(When reading the text, I am able to question the significance or truthfulness of what the
author says.)
Q13 :Saya mencoba berbagai cara untuk memahami suatu bacaan.
(I try to find as many ways as I can to comprehend the reading material.)

Q14 :Ketika saya bingung dengan apa yang saya baca, saya kembali membaca teks dan
mencoba memahaminya.
(When I become confused about something I’m reading, I go back and try to figure it out.)
Q15 :Saya menggunakan waktu sebanyak-banyaknya untuk membaca koran atau majalah
berbahasa Inggris.
(I look for opportunities to read as much as possible, such as magazines or newspaper
articles, in order to improve my reading ability in English.)
Q16 :Saya meminta soal dari guru untuk meningkatkan kemampuan saya dalam membaca
teks berbahasa Inggris.
(I ask the instructor or my friend questions in order to improve my reading ability in English.)
Q17 :Saya mengulang materi ketika ada tes.
(I review the material while studying for an examination.)
The following figure is the result of average use of each metacognitive strategy statements
chosen by students.
Table 2: The average result of metacognitive reading strategy

Q9

Q10

Q13

Q17

Q14

Q12
Q11

Q15
Q16

As shown from Table 2,Q14:“When I become confused about something in what I’m
reading, I go back and try to figure it out” had the highest average number of all (4.24). To
really grasp a text which was not written in their mother tongue, students were indeed
required to read the passage more than once. Studies suggested that when the texts they read
were getting more difficult, it was better for the readers to reading speed and even re-read for
better comprehension (Grabe, 1991; Sun, 2003). The statement proved that read again the
texts was indeed helpful for L2 readers. In contrast, Q16: “I ask the instructor or my friend
about questions in order to improve my reading ability in English” turned out to be the least
frequently used strategy chosen by students with average 2.36.
The interesting facts that can also be seen here from the result of metacognitive
strategy were when there were several questions related to one another which in fact had
almost the same number of average as well. This happened to Q9: Sebelum membaca saya
melihat gambar atau ilustrasi yang terdapat dalam suatu bacaan (Before reading I look at
the pictures of the passage.) (4.10)and Q10: Saya membaca pertanyaan-pertanyaan dahulu
sebelum membaca bacaan tersebut (I read the questions before I read the passage.)(3.85).
Those two statements had almost the same averages because actually the points of these two

statements were actually the same, which was doing something before reading the English
texts. The same case was with Q11: Secara rutin saya membaca per minggu dan
mengerjakan tugas-tugas bacaan tersebut (I make sure that I keep up with the weekly
readings and assignments for this course.) (2.87) and Q15: Saya menggunakan waktu
sebanyak-banyaknya untuk membaca koran atau majalah berbahasa Inggris (I look for
opportunities to read as much as possible such as magazines or newspaper articles in order
to improve my reading ability in English.)(2,53). They both had the lowest scores because
these two statements also referred to the same points, finding as much time as the students
had to enrich their reading performances. The last is Q14: Ketika saya bingung dengan apa
yang saya baca, saya kembali membaca teks dan mencoba memahaminya(When I become
confused about something I’m reading, I go back and try to figure it out.)(4.24) and Q17:
Saya mengulang materi ketika ada tes (I review the material while studying for an
examination.)(3.98).The students reread the texts if they needed to have better comprehension
of the texts they read.
B. Cognitive strategy
Flavell (1979)states that cognitive strategies include perceiving, understanding,
recollecting and other skills. Cognitive strategies bring about academic success, thus helping
learners increase their self confidence (Chamot & O’Malley, 1996). Cognitive strategy was
the second most frequently used strategy by the students with an average of 3.46. Seen from
the averages of both strategies, it seemed that the students relied on such strategies to
comprehend English texts. There were eight (8) statements asked to the students: Q1 to Q8.
Here are the statements:
Q1: Saya mencoba untuk mengingat kata kunci untuk memahami ide utama sebuah bacaan.
(I try to remember key words to understand the main idea of the text.)

Q2 :Saya membaca kembali hal-hal detail dari sebuah bacaan untuk menjawab pertanyaan
dari suatu bacaan.
(I go back to read the details of the passage for the answers of some questions.)
Q3 :Ketika membaca teks berbahasa Inggris, saya selalu mencoba untuk menjelaskan materi
bacaan kepada teman saya.
(When studying for this course, I often try to explain the material to my classmate.)
Q4 :Ketika saya mempelajari suatu bacaan, saya mencoba meringkas ide-ide pokok dari
bacaan.
(When I study for this course, I write brief summaries of the main ideas from the readings
and my class notes.)
Q5 :Saya membaca kembali hal-hal detail dari sebuah bacaan untuk menjawab pertanyaan
dari suatu bacaan.
(I go back to read the details of the passage for the answers of some questions.)
Q6 :Saya membuat skema mengenai bacaan yang dibahas untuk membantu mengorganisir/
mengatur gagasan saya.
(When I study the readings for this course, I outline the material to help me organize my
thoughts.)
Q7 :Ketika saya membaca sebuah teks, saya selalu menghubungkan materi tersebut dengan
pengetahuan /sesuatu hal yang telah saya ketahui.
(When I read the text, I try to relate the material to what I have already known)
Q8 :Saya membaca sepintas pada bagian tertentu dalam sebuah bacaan untuk mengetahui
kata kunci atau ide pokok.
(I skim/scan in the appropriate part of the text for the key words or ideas.)
Figure 3: The average result of cognitive reading strategy

Q5
Q7
Q1

Q8

Q2
Q3

Q4

Q6

Figure 3 shows that there were two most frequently used cognitive strategies;Q2 and
Q5. The both statements had the same scores. They belong to rehearsal and elaboration
strategies (Shang, 2010, p. 41). This finding echoes Wichadee’s statement, “reading strategy
(such as rereading or asking questions) would assist the reader to reconnect with the meaning
of the text” (2010). From the data, it could be concluded that to fully understand an English
text, students were felt that they had to read more frequently.
Beside Q2 and Q5, Q8: “I skim/scan the appropriate part of the text for the key word
or idea” also had a high average result; 3.48. According to Johnson & Johnson (1998)
skimming is defined as a rapid, superficial reading of a text to determine its gist while
scanning involves quickly searching a text for a specific piece of information .Sani, et al.
(2011) stated that students likely used this strategy when reading for general understanding
and to better remember facts or information and to know key ideas found in sentences that
contain important details. With this strategy, students may read quickly or slowly depend on
the difficulty of the text (p.36).
C. Compensation strategy

Caverly (1997) and Yang (2004) describe compensation strategy as a strategy
resulting in a successful reading comprehension is the development of vocabulary
knowledge. This strategy was the least frequently used strategy by the students. The average
score was 3.31. Four statements in the questionnaire were grouped in this strategy. The
statements were Q18 until Q21:
Q18 :Saya tidak memperhatikan suatu kata jika saya tidak tahu artinya.
(I skip the words if I don’t know the meaning.)
Q19 :Untuk menebak kata-kata bahasa baru, saya menebak artinya memakai awalan dan
akhiran kata tersebut.
(To understand unfamiliar English words, I make guessesfrom suffixes and prefixes).
Q20 :Saya menebak atau menerka apa yang akan terjadi dalam suatu bacaan tersebut.
(I predict what is going to happen next while reading.)
Q21 :Saya menggunakan latar belakang pengetahuan saya untuk menebak makna
keseluruhan bacaan tersebut
(I use my background knowledge to guess the overall meaning of the text.)
Figure 4: The average result of compensation reading strategy

Q20
Q21
Q19
Q18

The average differences from one to other statements of compensation strategy were
slightly different. The frequently used strategy was Q20: “I predict what is going to happen

next while reading”with average 3.61. To predict in here did not mean as determining the
upcoming words. Instead, they used prediction to anticipate later text development and the
author’s stance. It was a good thing for the students since by predicting indicates that they
naturally were good readers. This idea was strengthened by Pressley (2002) who proclaimed
that good readers knew that comprehension was most likely to occur from reading activity
and one of them was by knowing how to predict what might becoming up in the text. The
argument was also matched with Barnett’s (1989) “L2 readers could understand more of what
they read if they could activate their predictions about the text content”. The least adopted
compensation strategy is Q18: “I skip the words if I don’t know the meaning”
Conclusion
To conclude, reading is the kind of process in which one needs to not only understand
its direct meaning, but also comprehend its implied ideas Karbalaei (2010). The study is
urged to answer the question about what reading strategies which are apdotedby high school
students in reading English texts. The aim of this study is to help the readers, especially high
school students in understanding L2 text by using the best reading strategy which suit them.
However, this study still has several limitations related to the data collection process which
are on its questionnaire and the participants as well. Later, in the future study more numbers
of questionnaire and participant needs to be considered in order to make the data more
variable.
The study was conducted to investigate the reading strategies adopted by SMA Negeri
3 Salatiga students. The study found out that metacognitive reading strategy was the most
frequently used strategy by the participants. According to Schmitt (2000), metacognitive
strategies provide processes involving monitoring, decision-making, and evaluation of one’s
progress. This strategy helps the learner in choosing appropriate vocabulary learning

strategies for learning new words. The metacognitive strategy that is mostly used by
participants in this study was when the students found out the confusing parts while they
were reading English texts, they would have a tendency to repeat reading the texts. In this
way, the students would have the better comprehension and finally they could understand the
meaning of the texts they read. On her research, Wichadee (2011) also mentioned that this
strategy is really good for the students. She concluded that effective readers often monitored
their understanding, and when they lost the meaning of what they were reading, they usually
selected and used a reading strategy, such as rereading or asking questions that would help
them reconnect with the meaning of the text (Wichadee, 2011).The second conclusion that
can be drawn from this study is that the students actually applied reading strategies
spontaneously. What is meant by “spontaneously” is that the students might not know the
reading strategies, or how to use them.
Seeing the conclusion of this study, it would be better if from the very beginning of
teaching reading, the teachers later will also introduce reading strategies to the students. Even
though in some cases the students have already applied the reading strategies to their reading
without being told, it is better that the introducing session will still be done. If the students
know what reading strategies are, the use of them and how beneficial they are to help the
students to understand the English texts, they will be more triggered to always apply the
strategies whenever they read. Besides, it will also be a good habit for the students with the
help of the reading strategies, they are expected to have a good achievement in their reading
courses.
This study still has remaining limitations, especially on its questionnaire and
participants, the limitation are obviously affects the study’s result. Therefore, a wider variety
of assessment method is recommended in future studies i.e. observation, interview, diaries or
verbal report. The first limitation lies on the questionnaire, this study was only used 30

numbers of questionnaires which were not enough to cover all of the strategies used by
students. The next limitation was on the participants, the study needed extra classes and
participants to make the obtained data more reliable. That’s why it is important to consider
more participants in the future studies to get the better data result
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
This thesis would not have been finished without the support of many people. I wish
to express my gratitude to my supervisor, Bapak Prof. Dr. Gusti Astika, M.A., who
were abundantly helpful and patient in guiding me to finish this thesis in a limited time.
Special thanks for my lovely second reader, Ibu Christiana Sidupa, M.Hum who helped me
in completing this thesis. Without whose knowledge and assistance this study would not have
been completed. I would like to thank to the English Senior High school teachers in SMA
Negeri 3 Salatiga who were willing to share all their thought, experiences and knowledge to
support this thesis. I also wish to express my love and gratitude to my beloved family who
always supports me. Special thanks also go to my beloved brother Rendra Bagus Setiawan,
who also supports me by his prayer. My special thank also go to my beloved boyfriend
Randika Bagus Linuwih, who always remind me to finish this thesis and also supports me by
his prayer. I also thank to my friends who always support me and help me in doing my thesis,
especially to PPC, Rani, Ikka, Putri, Ancha, Mayang, Dhita and also my bestfriends Niken,
Ayuk, Anik, Kunyil, Dono-Joo, Inna, Esti, Aji, Erna and Kabib. All my best I give to Allah
that I can finish this study in time by His plan.

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Appendix
Reading strategy questionnaire
Pernyataan-pernyataan berikut adalah mengenai strategi apa yang Anda pakai pada
saatmembaca teks berbahasa Inggris. Pilihlah secara tepat frekuensi dari reading strategy
yang Anda gunakan dengan melingkari nomor-nomor yang telah tersedia.
1. Tidak pernah atau hampir tidak pernah melakukan hal tersebut
2. Biasanya tidak melakukan hal tersebut
3. Kemungkinan pernah melakukan hal tersebut
4. Biasanya melakukan hal tersebut
5. Selalu melakukan hal tersebut
No.
1

Pernyataan
Saya mencoba untuk mengingat kata kunci untuk memahami
ide utama sebuah bacaan

Skala Frekuensi

1 2 3 4 5
2

Saya membaca kembali hal-hal detail dari sebuah bacaan
untuk menjawab pertanyaan dari suatu bacaan
1 2 3 4 5

3

Ketika membaca teks berbahasa Inggris, saya selalu mencoba
untuk menjelaskan materi bacaan kepada teman saya

4

Ketika saya mempelajari suatu bacaan, saya mencoba
meringkas ide-ide pokok dari bacaan

1 2 3 4 5

1 2 3 4 5
5

Saya membaca kembali hal-hal detail dari sebuah bacaan
untuk menjawab pertanyaan dari suatu bacaan
1 2 3 4 5

6

Saya membuat skema mengenai bacaan yang dibahas untuk
membantu mengorganisir/ mengatur gagasan saya
1 2 3 4 5

7

Ketika saya membaca sebuah teks, saya selalu
menghubungkan materi tersebut dengan pengetahuan /sesuatu
hal yang telah saya ketahui
1 2 3 4 5

8

Saya membaca sepintas pada bagian tertentu dalam sebuah
bacaan untuk mengetahui kata kunci atau ide pokok

9

Sebelum membaca saya melihat gambar atau ilustrasi yang
terdapat dalam suatu bacaan

1 2 3 4 5

1 2 3 4 5
10

Saya membaca pertanyaan-pertanyaan dahulu sebelum
membaca bacaan tersebut

1 2 3 4 5

11

Secara rutin saya membaca per minggu dan mengerjakan
tugas-tugas bacaan tersebut
1 2 3 4 5

12

Ketika membaca, saya bertanya dalam hati tentang keadaaan
yang sebenarnya terjadi tentang sebuah isi bacaan
1 2 3 4 5

13

Saya mencoba berbagai cara untuk memahami suatu bacaan
1 2 3 4 5

14

Ketika saya bingung dengan apa yang saya baca, saya
kembali membaca teks dan mencoba memahaminya

15

Saya menggunakan waktu sebanyak-banyaknya untuk
membaca koran atau majalah berbahasa Inggris

1 2 3 4 5

1 2 3 4 5
16

Saya meminta soal dari guru untuk meningkatkan
kemampuan saya dalam membaca teks berbahasa Inggris
1 2 3 4 5

17
18
19

Saya mengulang materi ketika ada tes
1 2 3 4 5
Saya tidak memperhatikan suatu kata jika saya tidak tahu
artinya
Untuk menebak kata-kata bahasa baru, saya menebak artinya
memakai awalan dan akhiran kata tersebut

1 2 3 4 5

1 2 3 4 5
20

Saya menebak atau menerka apa yang akan terjadi dalam
suatu bacaan tersebut

21

Saya menggunakan latar belakang pengetahuan saya untuk
menebak makna keseluruhan bacaan tersebut

1 2 3 4 5

1 2 3 4 5