How to improve reading skills for students at an duong high school

Students are required to read lots and understand the reading material to achieve a better result in the learning process.. The main aim of this research is to investigate the reading co

BỘ GIÁO DỤC VÀ ĐÀO TẠO TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC DÂN LẬP HẢI PHÒNG

-ISO 9001 :2015

KHÓA LUẬN TỐT NGHIỆP

NGÀNH: NGÔN NGỮ ANH

Sinh viên: Đặng Thị Trang Anh Giảng viên hướng dẫn: TS Trần Thị Ngọc Liên

HẢI PHÒNG - 2019

BỘ GIÁO DỤC VÀ ĐÀO TẠO TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC DÂN LẬP HẢI PHÒNG -

AN DUONG HIGH SCHOOL

KHÓA LUẬN TỐT NGHIỆP ĐẠI HỌC HỆ CHÍNH QUY

BỘ GIÁO DỤC VÀ ĐÀO TẠO TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC DÂN LẬP HẢI PHÒNG

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NHIỆM VỤ ĐỀ TÀI TỐT NGHIỆP

Sinh viên: Đặng Thị Trang Anh Mã SV: 1412751122

Lớp: NA1804 Ngành: Ngôn ngữ Anh

Tên đề tài: How to improve reading skills for students at An Duong high school

NHIỆM VỤ ĐỀ TÀI

1 Nội dung và các yêu cầu cần giải quyết trong nhiệm vụ đề tài tốt nghiệp (về lý luận, thực tiễn, các số liệu cần tính toán và các bản vẽ)

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1 Các số liệu cần thiết để thiết kế, tính toán ………

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2 Địa điểm thực tập tốt nghiệp ………

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CÁN BỘ HƯỚNG DẪN ĐỀ TÀI TỐT NGHIỆP Người hướng dẫn thứ nhất:

Họ và tên: Trần Thị Ngọc Liên

Học hàm, học vị: Tiến sĩ

Cơ quan công tác: Trường Đại học Dân lập Hải Phòng

Nội dung hướng dẫn: How to improve reading skills for students at An Duong high school

Người hướng dẫn thứ hai:

Họ và tên:

Học hàm, học vị:

Cơ quan công tác:

Nội dung hướng dẫn:

Đề tài tốt nghiệp được giao ngày… tháng năm 2019 Yêu cầu phải hoàn thành xong trước ngày… tháng… năm 2019 Đã nhận nhiệm vụ ĐTTN Đã giao nhiệm vụ ĐTTN Sinh viên Người hướng dẫn

Đặng Thị Trang Anh Trần Thị Ngọc Liên Hải Phòng, ngày … tháng năm

Hiệu trưởng

GS.TS.NGƯT Trần Hữu Nghị

CỘNG HÒA XÃ HỘI CHỦ NGHĨA VIỆT NAM

Độc lập - Tự do - Hạnh phúc

PHIẾU NHẬN XÉT CỦA GIẢNG VIÊN HƯỚNG DẪN TỐT NGHIỆP

Họ và tên giảng viên:

Đơn vị công tác:

Họ và tên sinh viên: Chuyên ngành:

Nội dung hướng dẫn:

1 Tinh thần thái độ của sinh viên trong quá trình làm đề tài tốt nghiệp

2 Đánh giá chất lượng đồ án/ khóa luận (so với nội dung yêu cầu đã đề ra trong nhiệm vụ Đ.T.T.N trên các mặt lý luận, thực tiễn, tính toán số liệu…)

3 Ý kiến của giảng viên hướng dẫn tốt nghiệp Được bảo vệ Không được bảo vệ Điểm hướng dẫn Hải Phòng, ngày … tháng … năm

Giảng viên hướng dẫn

(Ký và ghi rõ họ tên)

CỘNG HÒA XÃ HỘI CHỦ NGHĨA VIỆT NAM

Độc lập – Tự do – Hạnh phúc

PHIẾU NHẬN XÉT CỦA GIẢNG VIÊN CHẤM PHẢN BIỆN

Họ và tên giảng viên:

Đơn vị công tác:

Họ và tên sinh viên: Chuyên ngành:

Đề tài tốt nghiệp:

1 Phần nhận xét của giáo viên chấm phản biện

2 Những mặt còn hạn chế

3 Ý kiến của giảng viên chấm phản biện

Được bảo vệ Không được bảo vệ Điểm hướng dẫn

Hải Phòng, ngày … tháng … năm …

Giảng viên chấm phản biện (Ký và ghi rõ họ tên)

My sincere thanks are also sent to all the teachers of English department at Haiphong Private University for their lectures in which the knowledge has help

me accomplish this task

I would like to express my heartfelt thanks to my students in class12A6 and English teachers at An Duong high school for their participation and assistance without which this study could not have been successful

Last but not least, I am really in debt to my family and my friends for their all useful help and great encouragement during the time I has done this paper

TABLE OF CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS vii

TABLE OF CONTENTS ii

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS iv

LIST OF TABLES v

LIST OF CHARTS vi

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1

1.1 Rationale for the study 1

1.2 Aims of the study 1

1.3 Scope of the study 2

1.4 Method of the study 2

1.5 Design of the study 2

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 4

2.1 The nature of reading comprehension 4

2.1.1: What is reading? 4

2.1.2: Type of reading 4

2.1.2: Definition of reading comprehension 6

2.2: Reading strategies 7

2.3: Challenges to reading comprehension 8

2.4: Reading Comprehension at high school 11

CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY 12

3.1: Descriptions of the participants 12

3.1.1: The background of ADHS 12

3.1.2 The students 12

3.2: Data collection instruments 12

3.2.1 Tests 12

3.2.2 Questionnaires 13

3.3: Data collection procedures 13

CHAPTER 4: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION 14

4.1 Findings from test 14

4.1.1 Pre-test results 14

4.1.2 Post-test results 15

4.2 Questionnaire results 17

4.3 Summary 22

CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSION AND SUGGESTION 23

5.1 Conclusion 23

5.2 Suggestion 23

REFERENCE 25

APPENDIX 1 27

APPENDIX 2 32

APPENDIX 3 38

APPENDIX 4 39

APPENDIX 5 41

APPENDIX 6 43

LIST OF TABLES

Table 1: Pre-test result

Table 2: Post-test results

Table 3: Student's feeling about learning a reading skill

Table 4: Student’s attitudes toward reading skills

Table 5: Students’ areas of difficulties

Table 6: Difficulties in reading skills

Table 7: Students’ ways of reading text

Table 8: Students’ understand about the strategies of reading comprehension texts

LIST OF CHARTS

Chart 1: Pre-test result

Chart 2: Post-test result

Chart 3: Comparison between pre-test and post-test

Chart 4: Student’s attitudes toward reading skills

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1.1 Rationale for the study

Reading is a basic skill that is closely related to other skills such as writing, speaking, and listening Students are required to read lots and understand the reading material to achieve a better result in the learning process According to Grabe and Stoller (2002), reading can be taught as a way to draw information from the text and to form an interpretation of that information It means reading

is also a gateway for students to get information and knowledge in the educational process Moreover, reading skill is also useful in other fields of science; for example, when students have to study information technology subject or find out materials involved tourists, history, even Math or chemistry

in English Students may read to gain information or verify existing knowledge,

do research and so on

Besides, reading also helps develops some skills in real life situations such as scanning the timetable when they fly by plane to go aboard or look for information on TV or magazines in English In also supports to understand other cultures, the relationship between people or social communication The more they read, the more knowledge they become Therefore, they must read English effectively However, English reading is often said to be difficult in spite of the students’ effort The requirement for teachers is to teach their students how to overcome the difficulties, but this is not an easy task

At An Duong high school, English is a compulsory subject Moreover, for the majors of English, after graduation, they will have to take a university entrance exam However, through observing English reading classes, I have realized most

of the students read texts at low speeds They lack strategies to take advantage of their vocabulary, linguistic or prior knowledge to do tasks Besides, the method

of teaching is sometimes not suitable; for example, some teachers translate the texts into Vietnamese or explain too many new words, which is a waste of time without dealing with the tasks

For the aforementioned reasons, the author must investigate what strategies to bring effects and whether the teaching of strategies benefits students’ learning of reading or not

1.2 Aims of the study

The main aim of this research is to investigate the reading comprehension level

of 12th-grade students at ADHS, as well as explore the results of improved reading comprehension after students apply some strategies to the reading process And, it will be able to help students improve their reading skills and prepare their luggage for the national high school graduation exam

1.3 Scope of the study

Due to the fixed curriculum and limited time, the study lasted for eight weeks and was conducted on two classes of 80 students at ADHS Research has provided and analyzed the data collected from the experiment to find the appropriate strategy to help students improve their reading comprehension skills

1.4 Method of the study

The study was carried out based on quantitative research methods in which the questionnaire and tests were chosen as the tool Questionnaires and tests were designed as a means to make the researcher's evaluation more objective The questionnaires were given to the 45 students at ADHS with the hope to find out the causes of difficulties in reading skills experienced by them and some suggested solutions to their difficulties Analyzing statistics from the survey questionnaire on reading activities were conducted with the cooperation of two classes of 12th grade students at ADHS All comments, remarks recommendation assumptions, and conclusion provided in the study were based on the data analysis

1.5 Design of the study

This thesis consists of five chapters accompanied by a list of references and appendices

Chapter 1: Introduces the rationale for the study, the aims, the research questions, the scope, the significance and the design of the study

Chapter 2: Reviews some literature regarding to some general theories related to reading comprehension, difficulties in the reading comprehension process Chapter 3: Provides a general description of the research method, the subjects chosen for the study, the data collection instruments and the procedures the research followed to conduct the study

Chapter 4: Presents the results of the 8-week experimental teaching, measured

by the questionnaires and tests which were done in both the control class and the experimental class

Chapter 5: Deals mainly with major findings and recommendations arising from the experiment, concerning teaching reading to the students at ADHS The last section of this chapter is the conclusion to the whole study

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW

The aims of this chapter is to review the literature relevant to the issues under research The literature review focuses on the following aspects: (i) the nature of reading comprehension; (ii) reading strategy; (iii) reading comprehension techniques; (iv) reading comprehension challenges; (v) reading comprehension

at senior high school

2.1 The nature of reading comprehension

2.1.1: What is reading?

Goodman (1971) defines reading as “a psycholinguistics process by which the reader, a language user, reconstructs, as best as he can, a message which has been encoded by a writer as a graphic display” (p.135) Goodman thought that this act of reconstruction is viewed as “a cyclical process of sampling, predicting, testing and confirming

William (1984) had the same view on reading, especially in the act of reconstruction as Goodman He argues that “written texts, then, often contain more than we need to understand them The efficient reader makes use of this to take what he needs, and no more, to obtain meaning” (p.3) His opinion is shared

by Nuttall and Grellet The former asserts that “reading is getting a message from the text.”

Harmer (1989) considers reading as a mechanical process that” eyes receive the message and the brain then has to work out the significance of the message” (p.153) he not only focuses on two actions that dominated by the eyes and the brain but also the speed of the process” a reading text moves at a speed of the reader”, which means the reader who decides how fast he wants to read the text

In short, from these opinions above, it is clear that no one can give all the ideas and features of what reading is Each definition reflects what reading means as seen from the scholar’s view However, all definitions reveal their common feature, that is the nature of reading Moreover, the definition “reading is understanding the author’s thought” seems to be preferable We- the reader read the author’s mind not the author’s words In this paper, reading is understood as

a skill of reading what the writers imply from what they safe

2.1.2: Type of reading

2.1.2.1: According to the ways of reading

2.1.2.1.1: Aloud reading

Aloud reading is an unnatural activity because most people do not read aloud in real life, and it is difficult for the speaker to pay attention to the meaning of the text when reading aloud According to Doff (1988), “aloud reading involves looking at a text, understanding it and also saying it Its purpose is not just to understand a text but to convey the implication to someone else” (p.67)

This kind of activity seems to be more popular in the language classroom.it focuses on the pronunciation of words in the text rather than understanding In reading a text, students come across many new words and phrases that they not know how to pronounce The teacher, in this case may help his students pronounce words by reading the text orally and loudly

2.1.2.1.2: Silent reading

Silent reading is the nearest approach to the essence of reading Because only by reading silently, can the readers best comprehend the written materials in the shortest possible time

According to Broughton, Brumfit and other linguistics (1980), (p.92), the nature of silent reading skills are to:

 Survey material which is to be studies, to look through indexes, chapter heading and outlines

 Skim- particularly when one item of information is being sought in a mass of other printed information

 Gain superficial comprehension, as when reading for pleasure or preparing to read aloud

 Study the content of what is read in some detail

 Study the language in which the material is written

Through these ways of using reading, the reader depth and detail of understanding of comprehension will be improved effectively

2.1.2.2: According to the purpose of reading

a Scanning

Scanning means glancing rapidly through a text to search for a specific piece of information (Grellet, 1981) It means that scanning is the ability to read a text quickly in order to find specific information that is needed like a date, a figure,

or a name and ignore over all unimportant information For example, a student scanning the list of name in a telephone directory to find a phone number

Scanning helps the reader find information quickly without reading the whole text

b Skimming

Skimming is a useful skill to be applied in reading Grellet (1999) stated that skimming means glance rapidly over a text to get the gist of it It means skimming is used to build students confidence and an understanding that it is possible to gain meaning without reading every word in a text Skimming assists the readers to understand the main idea of the text before reading it carefully Students can do skimming in several ways such as reading the title or the other heading and look a the picture, reading the first and the last paragraph of the text (Islam and Steenburgh, 2009)

c Intensive Reading

Intensive reading is reading for detail It usually has a shorter text A reader usually wants to get some specific information According to Macleod (2011), intensive reading exercises may include looking at main ideas versus details, understanding of what the text implies, making inferences, looking at the order

of information and how it affects the message, identifying words that connect one idea to another and identifying words that indicate change from one section

to another

d Extensive Reading

In extensive reading, the readers usually face a longer text In reading, the readers need a total understanding of writing According to Brown (2001), extensive reading is carried out to achieve a general understanding of a text Long and Richards (1987) identify extensive reading as occurring when the students read large amounts of high interest material, concentrating of meaning, reading for gist and skips unknown the words So, the aims of extensive reading are to build the readers’ confidence and enjoyment

2.1.2: Definition of reading comprehension

Reading is an activity to understand the content of the text that we read By reading, the reader can get any message and information which can increase knowledge According to Pang et al (2003), reading is about understanding written texts and comprehension is the process of making sense of words, sentences and connected text Reading comprehension involves both perception and thought Readers will use the background of knowledge, vocabulary, grammatical knowledge, and other strategies to help them to understand a

written text It means reading is a process of communication between the writer and the reader The writer has a message such as feelings, facts, ideas, and arguments they want to share Then, the writer puts the message into the words

So, reading is a way in which something interpreted or understood Reading does not only mean to understand words or grammar It is not just translating but reading is thinking, to read well in English reading material text, and the reader must think what the text means Reading comprehension is like having a conversation with someone If you do not understand what the other person is saying, you will have no idea what they are talking about and have nothing to

From the explanation above, the researcher concludes that reading comprehension is the process of getting the meaning of the content and all information about the topic in the text Comprehending an English text is not easy to do for students because English is a foreign language Many readers are not able to catch the author’s idea because of the limitation of thinking and analyzing the meaning of words and sentences Therefore, the reader should have a good concentration in reading text to get the meaning of the author’s idea

2.2: Reading strategies

2.2.1 General strategies for reading comprehension

Students often do not automatically translate the strategies they use when learning to read and translate their native language into other languages They will start reading each word and stop to search for something unknown Everything happens slowly, boring and following a routine, an outdated way of reading When they do this, the reading comprehension effect decreases and wastes time

To improve reading skills, students must practice reading a lot and use certain strategies Students' ability to understand writing depends on their ability to use strategies to understand what the writer says It means a strategy to help students understand the text they read

The following strategies can help students to read effectively and quickly:

(1) Using Prior Knowledge/Previewing

When students preview text, they tap into what they already know that will help them to understand the text they are about to read This provides a framework for any new information they read

(2) Predicting

When students make predictions about the text they are about to read, it sets up expectations based on their prior knowledge about similar topics As they read, they may mentally revise their predictions as they gain more information

(3) Identifying the Main Idea and Summarization

Identifying the main idea and summarizing requires that students determine what is important and then put it in their own words Implicit in this process is trying to understand the author’s purpose in writing the text

(4) Questioning

Asking and answering questions about a text is another strategy that helps students focus on the meaning of the text Teachers can help by modeling both the process of asking good questions and strategies for finding the answers in the text

(5) Making Inferences

To make inferences about something that is not explicitly stated in the text, students must learn to draw on prior knowledge and recognize clues in the text itself

(6) Visualizing

Studies have shown that students who visualize while reading has better recall than those who do not (Pressley, 1977) Readers can take advantage of illustrations that are embedded in the text or create their mental images or drawings when reading the text without illustrations

2.3: Challenges to reading comprehension

Difficulty is something that complicated to do (Richard 2007, as cited in Wahab 2012) It will be seen from students’ mistake or error learning process In fact, many senior high school students often find the difficulties in reading comprehension These difficulties result the student’s poor performance in reading test Thus, from these factors arise some difficulties in reading comprehension

Factors difficulties that faced by students divided into external and internal Internal factor includes physics, intellectual, and psychological While external factors include family and school environments (Rahim, 2006) There are some internal factors that influence the students in reading comprehension that are generally found by the reader during reading, namely; difficulty in understanding long sentence and text, difficulty that is caused by limited background knowledge, difficulty in using reading strategies and difficulty in concentration (Fajar: 2009)

2.3.1: Difficulties in understanding long sentence

In a common problem that most of students finds difficulty in understanding the long sentence with complicated structure It is supported by report of Barfield (1999) that shows almost 12 percent of students had difficulty in understanding long sentences in graded story and 20 percent in academic text Therefore, the effect of this problem is the students who cannot comprehending long sentence they fail to understand the main idea presented in the text

2.3.2: Difficulties in using reading strategies

The students who lack of reading strategies often fails in understanding the text The students who are not familiar with reading strategies such as skimming and scanning will feel down and frustrated because they lack of tool necessary to succeed in reading comprehension test (Duarte, 2005) There are characteristics

of the students who lack in use of reading strategies First, the students read word by word within the text, relying too heavily on their visual information, which greatly impedes their reading speed and hampers their reading comprehension Second, the students spent a lot attention on detail with the result they often miss the main idea of the text Third, they just focused too much attention on form of the expense meaning Furthermore, the students who

do not possess effective reading strategies may be difficulty to deal with reading comprehension test (Mei-yu, 1998 as cited by Fajar, 2009)

2.3.3: Difficulties in concentration

Difficulty in concentration during reading can be caused by a psychological factor Bad concentration will lead the students fail to comprehend the text It can be worse when the students do reading test Difficulty in concentration is another reason for students’ poor reading because concentration is an important factor for a good and effective reading Shaw (1959) states that comprehension

of a text results from reading with concentration But students, in most cases, cannot or do not concentrate properly while reading

According to Peter (2001), there are external factors that influence the students

in reading comprehension are reader environment The environment factors can also influence the students in mastering and in learning English Home and school are the two kinds of learners’ environment that can influence their learning reading achievement

2.3.4 Difficulties in language problem

Yolo (1971) gives out a country's view of reading problems He argues that reading problems of foreign language learners are largely due to the knowledge

of the target language to mother tongue interference in the reading process In his opinion, reading involves four-factor: knowledge of the language, ability to guess so as to make the correct choice, ability to remember the previous cues, and ability to make the necessary association between the different cues that have been selected Therefore, learners with limited knowledge of the target language may face considerable difficulties when reading in the target language Besides, readers have to face various difficulties The first and foremost problem

is that they may have to work with unfamiliar and difficult topics There are called “text problems” The content of the text might be rather strange to the students and the grammatical structures might be new Therefore, they cannot understand it The readers will find the text very challenging and might not have any motivation left to keep on reading L2 readers may have difficulty adjusting their reading strategies to match the author’s intent or purpose They may not be familiar with a particular story “grammar” or the organizational patterns of informational text They may not be familiar with the specific genre and the literary devices used in text

The second but not less important kind of problem is the “vocabulary problem”

As everyone knows, grammatical knowledge accounts for a great deal of competence in reading However, knowledge of vocabulary is a great deal more important as a factor of reading comprehension than awareness of grammatical structures (O’Donnel, 1961), (p.313-316)

L2 readers may lack knowledge of English grammar and syntax and therefore, may read word by word They may encounter too much unfamiliar vocabulary to grasp the overall concept in the sentence They are also challenged when reading idiomatic expressions and unfamiliar grammatical constructions

In addition, L2 readers may have difficulty with more complex and compound sentences They may lose the meaning of references within the text, such as with frequent use of pronouns Pronoun usage may be different or less frequent in the native language Connectives may be overlooked or misunderstood so they lose the relationships between concepts and ideas

Readers encounter a lot of difficulties in dealing with proverbs and idioms, synonyms and antonyms, polysemantic and subtechnical vocabulary Metaphor, metonymy and other types of transference of meaning also cause great difficulty for readers

2.4: Reading Comprehension at high school

Reading comprehension means understanding what has been read However, it does not mean that the result of teaching English in the school was satisfying, even though the fact is teaching the reading process is continuously being taught within three years at senior high school Reading makes students enjoy their learning process and gives several advantages in finding some information that

is needed It is an unlimited area that makes students learn about many things, such as education, politic, social, culture, religion, and health All of that information can be obtained by reading

Nowadays, at senior high school, teaching reading intends to develop students’ skills in reading comprehension the students are expected to comprehend social function, text structure, and language features in reading descriptive, narrative, recount texts, expository texts and so on in the oral and written form However,

in a real situation, the students do not achieve the curriculum expectation and have a lower ability in reading comprehension Besides, to overcome the difficulties of students in reading, teachers must first find out or know what difficulties experienced by students during the reading process and factors that cause difficulty in reading

CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY

The chapter deals with the method that has been employed for the achievement

of the aims and objectives of the study It also provides some information about the current situation of teaching and learning reading skills at An Duong high school The researcher analyses the data collected and then come up with certain findings on the difficulties experienced by the 12th form students at ADHS

3.1: Descriptions of the participants

3.1.1: The background of ADHS

An Duong high school has been established for 54 years It is located in the center of An Duong district Most of the students come from the rural area Currently, the school is also investing in modern facilities to improve the quality

of teaching for students

For students in Math, Chemistry and Physics classes, the time to learn English is three periods a week and each lesson will have 45 minutes

The schools has got 10 English teachers, aged from 25 to 50 The oldest teacher has more than 25 years of teaching experience and youngest teacher has got 3 years They have qualified with B, A in English

3.1.2 The students

The subjects of the experiment are forty-five students of class 12A6 of ADHS, aged 17, both male and female (about 27 males and 18 female) All of the students are studying the basic level of English at high school All of them specialize in Math, Chemistry and Physics, so they have the same purpose in learning English To students, English is a compulsory subject in the schedule, they always complained that “it has so many rules, it is so complicated”

3.2: Data collection instruments

3.2.1 Tests

In order to answer the first research question, the researcher used two tests: test (Appendix 1) and post-test (Appendix 2) as one of the two data collection instruments A measure of proficiency is used to compare the class at two

Pre-different points of time The pre-test was done at the beginning of the

experiment to see if students have the same level of proficiency The post-test was delivered after four weeks to measure and evaluate the change in

performance They were similar in format and level of difficulty

3.2.2 Questionnaires

The questionnaire was one of the supporting techniques the researcher aimed to identify students’ perception, opinion, problem, and ability in reading comprehension In this case, the form of questionnaire was closed with the alternative answer that would be chosen by the students Students chose only the best answer which is suitable for themselves The questionnaire contained 8 questions that need to be responded to correctly by the students

3.3: Data collection procedures

The experiment was conducted in four weeks, during the first semester of the 2019-2020 school-year at ADHS The researcher worked with the class to collect information about the students and their attitudes towards reading comprehension skills The researcher exploited a pre-test and a post-test together with survey questionnaires

In the first week, the students were given a survey questionnaire and a pre-test The students of the class had to answer eight questions in 10 minutes in one of the English lessons at the beginning of the semester The pre-test on reading comprehension includes 3 passages, have 15 questions and answer in 20 minutes, two point for each correct answer

In the next three weeks, the researcher worked with the class to give the treatment The students received different measures to deal with reading comprehension problems The students were explained reading strategies, used

to methods such as skimming, scanning, extensive reading, and intensive reading while reading a text Elaborations on what they need to do if they took part in the experiment The students were asked encouraged to discuss what they did with their classmates and did comprehension exercises This means the students had a chance to develop other comprehension sub-skills Instead of the traditional method reading, the beginning reading word by word to finish the texts and stop to looking up their unknowns Then they did the exercises in the test

Finally, at the end of the experiment, in week 4, the students of class 12A6 took

a post-test on reading comprehension and applied differences reading strategies After that, the researcher would compare and analyze the results of the students between the two tests to identify any improvement in reading proficiency

CHAPTER 4: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION

The previous chapter provides details of the participants, data collection instruments and procedures of the experiment In this chapter, the analysis and discussion of data collected are presented

4.1 Findings from test

4.1.1 Pre-test results

Finding of the research conducted by the researcher focuses in the difficulties faced by the students in reading comprehension The following table presents the frequency of the students’ correct answer and score in reading

comprehension test Table 1 shows that the students in 12A4 class could be

divided into subclass: weak students (1-14 scores), medium students (15-24 scores), good students (25-30 scores) The number of good students are 10 students, equally 22%, the number of medium scores is the majority (56%) Thus, it indicates that the students have difficulties in answering reading comprehension test

Table 1: Pre-test results

Chart 1: Pre-test result

Looking at the results, it showed that 18 of students (40%) has weak scores, 22

of students (49%) has medium scores, we can see that students in 12A6 class are

in low level of reading comprehension, the difference between weak scores and medium scores is 9% Meanwhile, only 5 students (11%) have good scores Most students spend time reading the whole paragraph from beginning to end and then they start reading questions and doing the exercises That leaves

students not enough time to do all the questions Because students read

traditionally, or sometimes they are familiar with words or grammar and they follow their feelings, it doesn't follow a certain strategy Therefore, the test results and the quality of the answers are average level