(CLASSROOM ACTION RESEARCH) Reading Comprehension

Through SQRW
PROPOSAL
(CLASSROOM ACTION RESEARCH)
: Improving the Achievement of the Second Years Students of SMP Negeri 2 Tegallalang in Reading

Title

Comprehension Through SQRW in Academic Year 2009/2010.

2.

Introduction

Reading comprehension is an essential skill for learners of English. For most of learners it is
the most important skill to master in order to ensure success in learning. With strengthened reading
skills, learners of English tend to make greater progress in other areas of language
learning. Reading should be an active, fluent process that involves the reader and the reading
material in building meaning.
Teaching students how to utilize the skills and knowledge they bring from their first language,
develop vocabulary skills, improve reading comprehension and rate, and monitor students
improvement are just some of the elements that teachers must consider in preparing for an English
language reading class. Learning to read in a second or foreign language is a process that involves
learning skills, learning new vocabulary and patterns, and cultivating the ability to transfer skills from
the classroom to the real world, where English may be used.
In Indonesia, English has been taught as a foreign language both as local current subject for
elementary school students and as compulsory subject for junior and senior high school students.
The 2006 School Based Curriculum or Kurikulum Tingkat Satuan Pendidikan, KTSP, gives
opportunity for every school to develop their own curriculum that taking account the standards
designed by the government. According to the 2006 curriculum or KTSP, student of English are
expected to master in language skills namely listening, speaking, reading, writing and to have
communicative competence in using it. Having communicative competence means students have
competencies in understanding and producing discourse in spoken and written under meaningful
context which influenced by situation and culture.
The basic competency of reading skill mentioned in KTSP of SMP for the second year
students is to comprehend transactional discourse and dialogue leading to interpersonal meaning
and/or oral monologue in the forms of descriptive, narrative, recount, and report. The achievement
indicator the students must gain is being competent in the sub reading skill, including
comprehending main idea, specific information, word meaning and textual reference of the text.
However, the thing that many students find difficulties in reading activity is to comprehend or
understanding the information of the reading material. The fact of the students problem in
comprehending reading text above also become the problem encountered by the second year
students of SMP Negeri 2 Tegallalang. Almost student have a problem in comprehending reading
text, in the four reading sub skills. The reading class is bored them because of the English teacher in

teaching reading only involve tasks in the text book, read the text, and answer the questions
following the text.
In line with the above reality, it is important to take a consideration in order to solve the
problem and to improve the students achievement in reading comprehension. One thing that must
be taken into account is the strategy in teaching reading. The strategy will use in this study call
SQRW, a Reading strategy mostly used in reading books.
The writer conduct this study for the purpose of improving the second year students in
reading comprehension, especially in comprehending main idea, specific information, word meaning
and textual reference of a text using SQRW.
2.1. Statement of the Problem
2.1.1. Major Problem
Could SQRW strategy improve the second year students of SMP Negeri 2 Tegallalang in
comprehending reading text?
2.1.2. Minor Problem
1) Could SQRW strategy improve the achievement of the second year students of SMP Negeri 2
Tegallalang in finding out the main idea of reading text?
2) Could SQRW strategy improve the achievement of the second year students of SMP Negeri 2
Tegallalang in finding out the specific information of reading text?
3) Could SQRW strategy improve the achievement of the second year students of SMP Negeri 2
Tegallalang in finding out the word meaning of reading text?
4) Could SQRW strategy improve the achievement of the second year students of SMP Negeri 2
Tegallalang in finding out the textual referent of reading text?
2.2. Objective of the Study
2.2.1. Major Objective
The major objective of the study is to improve the achievement of the second year students of
SMP Negeri 2 Tegallalang in comprehending reading text through SQRW strategy.
2.2.2. Minor Objective
The minor objective of the study is:
1) to improve the achievement of the second year students of SMP Negeri 2 Tegallalang in finding out
the main idea of reading text through SQRW strategy.
2) to improve the achievement of the second year students of SMP Negeri 2 Tegallalang in finding out
the specific information of reading text through SQRW strategy.
3) to improve the achievement of the second year students of SMP Negeri 2 Tegallalang in finding out
the word meaning of reading text through SQRW strategy.
4) to improve the achievement of the second year students of SMP Negeri 2 Tegallalang in finding out
the textual referent of reading text through SQRW strategy.

2.3.

Scope of the Study

This study is focus on finding out if the SQRW strategy could improve the students
achievement on reading comprehension, especially on the four sub reading skills, or not. The genre
of the reading text will use in this study is in the form of narrative and is limited to the class A of the
second year students of SMP Negeri 2 Tegallalang in academic year 2009/2010

2.4.

Hypothesis
The hypothesis of the study is that SQRW strategy could improve the achievement of second
year students in class A of SMP Negeri 2 Tegallalang in comprehending reading text, especially in
finding out the main idea, specific information, word meaning and textual referent.

2.5.

Definition of Key Term.

2.5.1.

Achievement
Achievement is defined as the act of achieving or something achieved especially by great effort or
persistence quoted by Merriam-Webster, in Juniari (2003:6). Achievement in this study is something
that is achieve at the end of a lesson using a test. In other words, it refers to the scores the students
gain in the test of reading comprehension.

2.5.2.

Reading Comprehension
Gillet and Temple in Juniari (2003:8) stated that reading comprehension is a search for meaning,
actively using our word knowledge and the text to understand new things we read. We need
knowledge of the world to understand new things, need to be familiar with various text structure
encountered and need to be active in seeking meaning to rise up from the passage.

2.5.3.

Narrative reading text

According
to
Tonjes,

et

al.

(1990),

as

citied

in http://cps.uswp.edu/courses/

EDUC310/Texstruct/narrativetextnarrative text is the text used to entertain, to tell a story, or to

provide as aesthetic literary experience. They also said that narrative text is based on life experience
and is person-oriented using dialogue and familiar language.

2.5.4.

SQRW Strategy
SQRW is a four-step strategy for reading and taking notes from chapters in a textbook. Each letter
stands for one step in the strategy. Using SQRW will help you to understand what you read and to
prepare a written record of what you learned. The written record will be valuable when you have to
participate in a class discussion and again when you study for a test. It is an effective reading
process, related to some techniques that usually help the readers not only to enjoy their reading but
also to read and remember the main point.

3.

Review of Related Literature

3.1.

Reading Comprehension
Comprehension, a complex cognitive process, is central to acquiring a new linguistic system.
Input must be decoded in some comprehensible fashion for second language acquisition to occur. In
the case of a foreign language reading comprehension, the reader uses previous knowledge to
construct and integrate meaning from text. During reading there is simultaneous cognitive processing
involving pattern recognition, letter identification, lexical access, concept activation, syntactic
analysis, propositional encoding, sentence comprehension, activation of prior knowledge, information
storage, and comprehension monitoring. According to connectionist models (e.g., Koda, 2005, 2007;
Nassaji, 2002. in Diana Pulido and David Z. Hambrick) the generic knowledge structures, or
background knowledge, that are accessed during reading are largely determined by the quality of the
text base that the learner constructs. Text base quality is affected by the individuals text processing
efficiency (i.e., ability in lower-level processes, such as word recognition and syntactic parsing) and
working memory.
Gillet and Temple in Juniari (2003:9) stated that reading comprehension is a search for
meaning, actively using our word knowledge and the text to understand new things we read. We
need knowledge of the world to understand new things, need to be familiar with various text structure
encountered and need to be active in seeking meaning to rise up from the passage.
Simanjutak (1998), as citied in Raharja (2004:9), agreed on reading as a cognitive process of
making interaction with print and monitoring comprehension to establish meaning which involves the
process of identification (the ability of the reader to identify or determine what the text says) and the
process of interpretation (the readers activity to make sense or to draw out the meaning of the
reading text they read).
Reading comprehension is process of understanding written text or information presented by
the author and affected by many factors. Those are factors within the readers, factor within the
written message, and factors within the reading environment (Pearson Johnson, in Gipe (1991:156).
Comprehension processes and second language acquisition processes, although somewhat
overlapping, are also distinct. For example, comprehension involves constructing a mental
representation from the propositional content for the purpose of understanding the message.
However, in order for a linguistic system to be developed through comprehension activities,
additional input processing must occur. Such processing entails making form-meaning connections
from the input, or focusing attention on new forms and associating them with their functions or
referents.

3.2. Narrative Text

Depdiknas (2003:80) stated that narrative text learned by the students of junior high school
related with problematic events whose social function are to amuse, entertain, and deal with actual
or vicarious experience in different ways.
Narrative text is reading for story. It is often called fiction in which the values are used to
describe, explain human behavior (citied in http;//www.ksde.org/outcomes/texttype.doc).

Meanwhile,
Tonjes,
et
al.
(1990),
as
citied
in http;//cps.uswp.edu/courses
/EDUC310/textstruct/narrative.asp, stated that narrative text is the text used to entertain, to tell a
story, or to provide as aesthetic literary experience. They also said that narrative text is based on life
experience and is person oriented using dialogue and familiar language.
3.3. SQRW
SQRW, it might sound sort of complex but its actually quite simple and straight
forward. SQRW is a four-step strategy for reading and taking notes from chapters in a
textbook. SQRW is a four-step strategy for reading and taking notes from textbooks that will help you
better prepare for exams, better prepare for class discussion, improve your reading comprehension
and help you learn better using textbooks. SQRW stands for Survey, Question, Read and Write.
Survey

: The first step in the SQRW reading strategy is Survey. Before you actually start reading a chapter you
first survey the chapter. You read the chapter title, introduction, headings and the summary or
conclusion at the end of the chapter. When you survey you should also review any pictures, graphs,
maps, or tables in the chapter and the caption (text explanation that goes with each). The purpose of
surveying the chapter is to quickly learn what the chapter is about before reading it in its entirety.

Question : The second step in the SQRW reading strategy is to ask questions as your read. Questions help you
to focus and give your reading purpose. Instead of simply reading without purpose now you are
searching for useful, applicable information. Use each chapter heading to develop questions for that
chapter. For example, for chapter titled Housing Training Dogs you might develop the question
How many ways are there to house train a dog? or What is involved in house training a dog? If a
chapter heading contains several ideas you may want to form a question for each idea. Always
remember to use the chapter headings to develop questions dont use the conclusion, summary,
introduction or the text to develop your questions.
Read

: The R in the SQRW stands for Read and represents the third step in the SQRW reading strategy.
Once youve surveyed the chapter and developed questions based on the chapter titles you should
then read the information contained in the chapter to answer the questions you developed. As you
read the chapter in an attempt to answer the questions you developed you may find it necessary to
modify your question(s) or you may think of more questions that need to be answered. Make sure to
focus as you read and take time to thoroughly answer each question you develop.

Write

: The final step in the SQRW reading strategy for reading textbooks is Write. Make sure to write each of
the questions you form along with its answer in a notebook. After youve written down each question
as well as the answer to each question review each question again to make sure you have
completely answered the question.
3.4. Empirical Review

SQRW strategy is a strategy used in teaching reading which is based on the strategies the
good readers use when they are reading.
There were other strategies with the same basis had been empirically tested by some
researchers of IKIP Negeri Singaraja. One of them is called SQ3R which stands for Survey,
Question, Read, Recite, and Review. Putri (2002), as one of the researchers, conducted a study for
the purpose of improving the students ability in reading comprehension through SQ3R strategy. Her
study showed that the strategy could improve the students ability in reading comprehension. It could
be seen from the mean score of the achievement test conducted in every cycle which showed
gradual improvement.
SQRW and SQ3R are similar. Both of them devote the students to survey or preview the title
and introductory paragraph of the text, read, answer the questions, identify the important information
and summarize the information in ones own words
The second strategy is PARTS strategy which was conducted by Juniari (2005). The purpose
of his study was to improve the first year students reading comprehension through the strategy. The
result indicate that PARTS strategy provided guidance and advantages to help the students in
comprehending reading text. PARTS as well as SQRW strategy similarly ask the students to do
preview activity, answer the questions, read the text and also rewrite or recreate text.

4.

Research Methodology

4.1. Subjects
The subject of the study is the second year students of SMP Negeri 2 Tegallalang in
academic year 2009/2010, especially class VIIA. The subject consists of 40 students, 23 male and
18 females.
4.2. Research Design
The researcher implemented a classroom action research. Carr and Kemmis
stated Classroom Action Research is a form of self-reflective inquiry undertaken by participants in
social (including educational) situation in order to improve the rationality and justice of (a) their own
social or educational practices, (b) their understanding of these practices, and (c) the situation in
which practices are carried out. (McNiff, 1988, in Sandiani, 2005:6),
Classroom action research is conducted in cyclic process, involving the process of planning,
action, observation and reflection (Kemmis and Taggart, 1998:10). This action research was conduct
to the second year students of SMP Negeri 2 Tegallalang by implementing cycles. The cycle could
be figure out as follows.

4.3. Research Instrument

Some instruments use to obtain the data are:
1)

Reading task
Reading tasks are used in each session during the action of the cycle.

2)

Test

There are two kinds of test administered in this study, those are pre-test and post-test. The pre-test is
conducted to see the problems faced by the students. The post-test is conducted at the end of each
cycle to find the students improvement in reading skill.
3)

Teachers diary
Teachers diary is designed in the form of unstructured observation sheet. It is used to identify extra
finding, like students behavior and attitude during the teaching learning process.

4)

Questionnaires
Questionnaires are conducted when the post-test are administrated to the students. The purpose is
to see the students opinion as well as their feeling during the teaching learning activity.

erview
An informal interview is conducted to see the students opinion to the way they usually do in reading
class.
4.4. Research Procedure
This present study conducts in order to improve students ability in reading comprehension
through SQRW strategy to encourage them to read and feel confident about their ability to
understand written text. Due to the aim of this study, an action-based research, is the one that
proposed by Kemmis and Taggart (1998, in Sandiani, 2005:14).
1). Pre-test
The researcher observes the students attitude and behaviors toward the test given during the pretest. This pre observation was conducted in order to find out whether they find any difficulties or not.
Based on the result of the pre-test and the pre observation, the researcher then decide whether to
stop or continue this study and conducting a treatment by applying SQRW (Survey, Question, Read,
Respond, Review and reflect) strategy in teaching learning reading.
2). Cycle
The treatment is going to be conducted in cyclic process and the cycle consists of three
meetings. The cycle is started with reflection. Based on the result of that reflection, then making a
plan, action and observation, evaluation and get reflection again the action before based on the
result of the observation the evaluation.
The action procedure that will be implemented in this study as follows:

Planning :
o Making a teaching scenario for each meeting.
o Preparing the reading material will be used in the exercise and post test.
o Preparing the teaching media (pictures, photos and slides)
o Preparing the work sheet.
o Preparing the test.
o Preparing the observation instruments ( teachers diary and questionnaire)

Action

Steps in the teaching and learning process

o Pre-activity
Engagement (gives short brainstorming related to the topic for focusing the students attention).
o whilst-activity
-

Exploration (giving student a chance to train)

Elaboration (giving a challenge to reinforce the student to enlarge their knowledge)

Confirmation (to generalize the material learned : sentence pattern, phrases, new words)
o Post-activity
-

Assessment
Based on the action procedures above, the researcher can construct a teaching scenario as
follows: