ENGLISH DEPARTMENT FACULTY OF LANGUAGE AND …

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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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This thesis contains no such material as has been submitted for examination in any course or accepted for the fulfillment of any degree or diploma in any university. To the best of my knowledge and my belief, this contains no material previously published or written by any other person except where due the reference is made in the text.

Copyright@ 2013. Dinar Kurnia Kusumastuti and Prof.Dr. Gusti Astika, M.A.

All rights reserved. No part of this thesis may be reproduced by any means without the permission of at least one of the copyright owners or the English Department, Faculty of Language and Literature, Satya Wacana Christian University, Salatiga.

Dinar Kurnia Kusumastuti:

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Thesis Supervisor Thesis Examiner

Prof. Dr. Gusti Astika, M.A. Christiana Sidupa, M.Hum.

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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

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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;

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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.

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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

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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;

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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,

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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

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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

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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

Compensation

Metacognitive�

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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.)

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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

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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

Q9 Q10

Q11

Q12 Q13 Q14

Q15

Q16

Q17

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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.)

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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

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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

Q1 Q2

Q3 Q4

Q5

Q6

Q7 Q8

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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

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

Q18 Q19

Q20

Q21

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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

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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

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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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References

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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. Pernyataan Skala Frekuensi

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

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

1 2 3 4 5

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

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

1 2 3 4 5

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

1 2 3 4 5

10 Saya membaca pertanyaan-pertanyaan dahulu sebelum membaca bacaan tersebut 1 2 3 4 5

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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

1 2 3 4 5

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

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 Saya mengulang materi ketika ada tes 1 2 3 4 5

18 Saya tidak memperhatikan suatu kata jika saya tidak tahu artinya 1 2 3 4 5

19 Untuk menebak kata-kata bahasa baru, saya menebak artinya memakai awalan dan akhiran kata tersebut

1 2 3 4 5

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

1 2 3 4 5

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

1 2 3 4 5

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