THE READING COMPREHENSION ABILITY

IN RECOUNT TEXT OF THE EIGHTH

GRADE STUDENTS OF SMPN 5 SIMPANG
EMPAT IN SCHOOL YEAR 2012/2013

Presented by Ridho Indra

Saputra
3060912039

Introduction
Background

Reading is often considered the most difficult ones by up 20% of

English language learners (ELLs) in terms of literacy, accuracy,
and efficiency. For instance, the ELLs often have problems
mastering science, math, or social studies concepts because they
cannot comprehend the textbooks for these subjects. Generally
speaking, improving reading skills requires more time of training
than improving listening or speaking. (Hennessy, 2009; Robertson,
2008; Colorado, 2007)
Preliminary study (2012) also pointed out the eighth grade
students in SMPN 5 Simpang Empat had difficulty in differentiating
recount text from others because they did not understand what is
the recount text. As a result, the students motivation was
decreased in reading and it turned to be a boring and hard activity
for them.

Introduction
Statement of the Problem
How is the eighth grade students ability in comprehending
the recount text at SMPN 5 Simpang Empat in school year
2012/2013?

Introduction
Purpose of the Study
Explaining the eight grade students ability in comprehending
the recount text at SMPN 4 Simpang Empat in school year
2012/2013.

Introduction
Significance of the Study
Implication
The research result is expected to contribute a genre theoretical
basis with particular attention to the recount text.
Application
For teachers, the research result can be used to develop their
teaching process by understanding the students ability in
comprehending the recount text.
For students, the research result can be used to increase their
awareness of their own ability in the recount text.
For other researchers, the research result can be used as useful
information to do further research on similiar object and other
subjects.

Review of Literature
Reading can be seen as an interactive process between a reader and a text which leads
to automatically or (reading fluency). In this process, the reader interacts dynamically with
the text as he/she tries to elicit the meaning and where various kinds of knowledge are
being used: linguistic or systemic knowledge (through bottom-up processing) as well as
schematic knowledge (through top-down processing).

Comprehension is an active process during which the reader constructs meaning from
text whether reading Where the Wild Things Are or The Voice of Evidence in Reading
Research. It has also been defined as the product of decoding and listening comprehension.
Comprehension is affected by the readers knowledge of the topic, knowledge of language
structures, knowledge of text structures and genres, knowledge of cognitive and
metacognitive strategies, their reasoning abilities, their motivation, and their level of
engagement. Reading comprehension is also affected by the quality of the reading material.
The most practical way of thinking about teaching reading comprehension is to organize
instruction according to how you want students to think about strategies. The most
straightforward way of organizing comprehension strategies is to think about strategies that
one might use before reading, during reading, and after reading.

Review of Literature
Recount text is a kind of text which tells about past events,
particularly here is a writer personal experience. The general
characteristics of this text consist of (1) text communicative purpose
(to retell events for the purpose of informing or entertaining, (2)
generic structures, include orientation (to give information about
who, where, and when), events (the chronological records of the
events), and reorientation (to reintroduce the sequences of those
events, (3) linguistic features, comprise of nouns and pronouns,
action verbs, past tense, conjunction and time connectives, adverbs
and adverb phrases, and adjectives.

Review of Literature
The following is an alternative outline point of a classroom
activity which uses the genre based approach:

Students are introduced to the theory behind genres.

The students are then introduced to the task they have to do in groups. In order to
encourage them to see the very real relation between social function and textual form,
start the activity by focusing first on a real and specific social situation that most of the
students would be familiar with and would be able to call up from their mental schemas.
After the students are given sufficient time for discussion, the various groups come
together again to share with the whole class the ideas that they came up with.
As the students ideas about the social purposes of the genre and the characteristic
features of the genre are now both on power point slides, we can toggle between the two
slides while engaging the students in a discussion about which social purposes might
underlie the various text elements they have identified.
To concretise and to add authenticity to the discussion, the students find it interesting to
look at genuine samples of the genre under discussion, to see if the textual elements
they identified are indeed found in actual examples of the genre. This is a particularly
useful stage of the lesson if the genre chosen for discussion is a fairly new one (Ramona,
2009).

Method of Research
Location
The research location is at SMP Negeri 5 Simpang
Empat. It is situated on Jl. Jelamu, RT. 2 Desa Rantau
Bujur Kecamatan Simpang Empat, Kabupaten Banjar.

Method of Research
Design
The quantitative approach is used in this research with
its descriptive design. This design is used for gaining
more information about particular characteristic within a
particular field of study by the purpose of explaining the
current status of a variable of interest to the researcher,
in this case, is the eight grade students ability in
comprehending the recount text at SMPN 5 Simpang
Empat.

Method of Research
The Procedure of Data collection
Data Source
The data are obtained from the result of test given and
done by the eight-grade students of SMPN 5 Simpang
Empat in school year 2012/2013.
Technique of Collecting Data
The data are collected by written test on reading
comprehension especially in recount text and done by the
eight-grade students of SMP Negeri 5 Simpang Empat. The
test is multiple choice and consist of 10 questions.

Method of Research
Population
Research Population
The population of this research is the eight grade
students of SMPN 5 Simpang Empat. It consists of one
class: class XIII with 25 students. So, the total number of
the students as research populations are 25 students.
Sampling Technique
The number of population is 25 students or less than
100 subjects, so all of them are taken as samples. This
research is total sampling technique. According to
Bungin, Sampel total yaitu keseluruhan populasi
merangkap sample peneltian (Bungin, 2005: 101).

Method of Research
Technique of Data Analysis

This research uses the following steps to analyze the collected data. There
are
Testing
Examining
Scoring
Mean score
Individual score
S =

S = Score of student
F = Right answer
N = Total items
(Diknas, 2004)

= Mean score
= Total sscore
obtained
= Total number of
students
(Arikunto, 1993:271)

Method of Research
Qualification Table

Score

Qualification

80-100

Excellent

60-80

Good

40-60

Average

20-40

Poor

0-20

Very Poor

Method of Research
The quality of students ability will
clasified with the following criteria :
76-100 % = Good
56-75 %= Fair
40-55 %= Poor
<40 % = Very Poor
(Arikunto, 2006 : 210)

Method of Research
Instrument
The instrument used in the research is an achievement test,
or a test which is given after one has finished studying the
matter that will be further tested. The kind of the instrument
is a reading test which consists of four recount texts by 10
numbers of multiple choice questions. The time given to do
such test is 60 minutes. The material of the test is adopted
from the eighth grade junior high school English book.

References

Allison, Carol. 2009. How to Teach Genre. Head of Media Studies, The Cauncy School,
Ware, Herts.
Arikunto, Suharsimi. 2006. Prosedur Penelitian. Jakarta: Rineka Cipta.
Alyousef, Hesham Suleiman. 2006. Teaching Reading Comprehension to ESL/EFL
Learners. Journal of Language and Learning, Volume 5 Number 1 2006.
Bungin. 2005. Metodologi Penelitian Pendidikan. Jakarta: Rineka Cipta.
Colorado, Colorin. 2007. Reading Comprehension Strategies for Content Learning. An
article, searched in 2012.
Chandler, Daniel. 1997. An Introduction to Genre Teory. An Article, searched in 2012.
Depdiknas. 2004. Dokumen Negara. Jakarta: Departemen Pendidikan Nasional
Hennessy, Nancy. 2009. Reading for Meaning: Helping Students Become Successful
Readers. An Article, published March 3, 2009.
Ramona. 2009. Helping Students to see Genres as More Than Text Types. An
Article of National Institute of Education, Nanyang Technological University (Singapore).
Rozhani, Rully. 2011. The Compilation of Research Points for English Education
Department Students. STKIP PGRI Banjarmasin
Tim Penyusun. 2009. Detik Detik Ujian Nasional Bahasa Inggris untuk SMP/MTs. Tim
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