IMPROVING STUDENTS’ READING COMPREHENSION THROUGH RECOGNIZING TEXT ORGANISATION FOR THE NINE YEAR STUDENTS OF SMP MUHAMMADIYAH 8 YOGYAKARTA IN THE ACADEMIC YEAR OF 2014/2015

摘要

The objective of the research is to improve students’ reading comprehension through recognizing text organizations at SMP Muhammadiyah 8 Yogyakarta. This research applied the principles of action research. It was conducted in two cycles. The subjects of the study were 30 students of class IXC of SMP Muhammadiyah 8 Yogyakarta. In collecting data, the research employed some techniques, namely observations, interviews and reading tests. The data were in the forms of field notes, students’ tests and interview transcripts. udTo deal with the problems, the researcher implemented recognizing text organization as the main activity. This strategy has five kinds of patterns organization, i.e. listing, sequence, comparison/ contrast, cause/ effect, problem/ solution and extended definition. This research employed the strategies of recognizing the sequence pattern for procedure texts and recognizing the extended definition pattern for report text because the focus on this research was procedure and report text. udIn reference to the application of two cycles, the results of the research reveal that the use of recognizing text organization, particularly, the strategy of recognizing the sequence and the extended definition patterns successfully improved the students’ reading comprehension. The students were able to identify the ideas of paragraphs explained in supporting details and topics told in the chronological order in the text so that they understood the texts. In addition, these activities made them became more active because they were accustomed to identifying the patterns before they answered questions. They also enjoyed the teaching and learning process of reading. The improvements were also seen from the students’ mean score from pre-test and post-test 51,7 and 63,2.