INCREASING STUDENT’S READING COMPREHENSION THROUGH DRTA-STRATEGY (A CLASSROOM ACTION RESEARCH AT SMP ST.IGNASIUS MEDAN)

This study was designed to improve the students’ reading comprehension ability through DRTA Strategy. It was conducted in order to find a strategy of teaching and learning that occurs, especially, in the teaching of reading skills. The strategy was selected because it was believed to be able to stimulate or activate the students to be more involved in the reading activities and to facilitate the students to comprehend the texts, especially report texts. Thus, this study was directed to solve practical problems in the teaching and learning process. The research problem was formulated as follows: “How to apply DRTA strategy in order to improve students reading comprehension at SMP ST.IGNASIUS MEDAN?
The study employed a collaborative classroom action research design in which the researcher and the collaborator as research team worked together designing the lesson plan, implementing the action, observing the action, and reflecting the action. The subjects of this research were 30 students the first semester students XI of SMP ST.IGNASIUS in the 2013/2014 academic year. This research study was conducted in two cycles by following the procedure of action research, i.e. planning, action, observation, analysis and reflection. Each cycle of the research study encompassed three meetings of the strategy implementation and reading comprehension test. The data of this research study were obtained through reading tests, observation checklist and field notes at the end of the cycle and the implementation of DRTA strategy in teaching-learning process. The findings of this research study indicated that the DRTA strategy was successful in improving both the students’ ability in comprehending report texts and the students’ involvement in reading activities. The improvement can be seen from the students’ individual score percentage from preliminary study to Cycle 2. The students’ mean score had improved greatly from 58.66 to 80.33 or the students’ individual score percentage had achieved to a great extent from 77.14 to 85.71. The mean score and the students’ individual score indicated higher than predetermined criteria of success that was 80% of 30 students who got score 70. Based on the result of the Cycle 2, the next cycle did not need to be conducted because the students’ individual scores that the predetermined criteria of success have been met in the second cycle. Dealing with the students’ involvement, it also seemed that most of students (93.30%) were involved actively in the reading activities in Cycle 2 which were shown by the observations checklists and field notes. The appropriate procedure of DRTA strategy in teaching reading comprehension encompassed the following steps: 1) the teacher create a classroom climate in which students are free to state their ideas and share their thinking; 2) Introduce the purpose of the DRTA; 3) The students divided into groups and then the researcher gives the copies of the text to the students; 4) Determine the text to be used and pre-select points for students to pause during the reading process, and provide examples of how to make predictions; 5) Then the researcher clarified the prior knowledge to the students that related to the content of the topic by applying DRTA strategy; 6) The teacher asked the groups to make a list of the different features that supply clues about the text; 7) The teacher helped the class understand that the features will help them predict what they are going to read, which in turn will help them understand the material; 8) Each group discuss the text and write their prediction, using prediction list.;9) The researcher called on each group to read their prediction and explain the group’s reasoning. 10) Ask the students compare their predictions with the actual content of the text.11) Ask the students to analyze their checklist and determine how well they predicted the content of the text. Based on the students’ achievement using DRTA strategy in comprehending report texts, it was suggested for the English teachers apply DRTA strategy as one of many alternatives that can be used in teaching reading skills. To the further researcher teachers, particularly those who are interested in applying DRTA strategy in their research, it is suggested that they conduct classroom action research and implement this strategy in the teaching of reading to other English text types (descriptive, narrative, recount, procedure) and other language skills, for instance writing and it can be their reference in conducting in the same strategy. For institution, DRTA strategy can be new strategy that can improve the students’ reading comprehension ability of grade nine at SMP ST.IGNASIUS in comprehending the report texs.