IMPROVING STUDENTS’ READING COMPREHENSION OF

DESCRIPTIVE TEXT BY USING PREDICTION STRATEGY

Desy Wulandari*, Muhammad Sukirlan, Sudirman

FKIP Universitas Lampung, Jl. Prof. Dr. SoemantriBrojonegoro No. 1

*Corresponding author, tel/fax: 0812-7157765, email: desilestari0131@gmail.com

Abstract: Improving Students’ Reading Comprehension of

Descriptive Text by Using Prediction Strategy. This research aimed
to find out whether i) there was a statistically significant increase of
students’ reading comprehension after the students were taught
through prediction strategy, ii) the students’ response in the
implementation of prediction strategy in reading. The data were
obtained from the pre-test, the post-test, and questionnaires. The
result showed that there was a statistically significant increase of
students’ reading comprehension with the significant level
(0.00<0.05). The results of questionnaire showed that the majority of
the students felt satisfied and agreed that prediction strategy can
improve their reading comprehension . This suggests that the use of
prediction strategy in reading help the students improve their reading
comprehension achievement, in term of descriptive texts.

Keywords: Improve, Reading, Comprehension, Prediction, Strategy

Abstrak : Meningkatkan Kemampuan Membaca Siswa pada

teks Deskriptif menggunakan Prediction Strategy. Penelitian ini
bertujuan untuk mengetahui i) apakah ada peningkatan secara
signifikan pada pemahaman membaca siswa setelah diajarkan
menggunakan prediction strategy, ii) respon siswa pada penggunaan
prediction strategy dalam pembelajaran membaca. Data diperoleh
dari pre-test, post-test, dan kuisioner. Hasil menunjukkan bahwa
terdapat perbedaan signifikan secara statistik pada kemampuan
pemahaman membaca siswa dengan tingkat signifiikan (0.00<0.05).
Hasil dari kuisioner menunjukkan bahwa mayoritas siswa merasa
puas dan setuju bahwa prediction strategy dapat meningkatkan
kemampuan membaca mereka. Dapat disimpulkan bahwa
penggunaan prediction strategy dalam membaca dapat membantu
siswa meningkatkan kemampuan membaca mereka khususnya pada
descriptive text.

Kata kunci : Meningkatkan, Pemahaman, Membaca, Prediction,

Strategy
.
INTRODUCTION Therefore, teacher should stimulate
Reading is one of the language them to predict and infer what the
skills that the students have to text is about. The students need to
master. By reading, someone can know many words to get the
obtain much information. For the information on the text.
students who study English, reading The learning process of reading
is not only reading something but continuously involved the
also comprehending its content. conventional activity in which the
Reading comprehension is a process students should read the written text
involving the understanding of the individually and the teacher checks
reading text itself. Broughton et al. their fluency and pronunciation. That
(2002: 89) state, “Reading is a technique seems to be effective to
complex skill, that is to say that it gain a higher ability in reading a text
involves a whole series of lesser for the accurate spelling; but it
skill.” By reading, students will be cannot reach the aspects of all the
able to identify and to understand reading comprehension where the
any kinds of text in English. students should be able to find the
Wahyudin (2011:53) also writes, main idea, making inference from a
“Since reading becomes one of the text, find the reference word, and
basic ways of obtaining information, knowing the supporting details.
it is therefore considered as an Furthermore, that conventional
important activity in any language technique absolutely made the
classes.” teacher use the time more and could
English teacher need to develop be stated as an inefficiency, because
their teaching technique especially in it could not make the students reach
teaching reading comprehension the aspects of all reading
because the techniques of teaching comprehension.
influence the students’ success. Teacher should have effective
Therefore, English teacher must reading strategy for the students to
select suitable way, method, and gain better reading comprehension.
strategy to teach. The teacher needs a According to Anderson (2008), to
strategy to make the students make students become active and get
comprehend and catch the idea of the involved in reading activities, it is
text easily. In this case, pictures can needed to teach them using reading
be used as a media to help the strategies because reading with
students awake their background various strategies creates students to
knowledge. be creative and critical readers.
In Indonesia, most of the students Predicting by using picture is a
fail to comprehend the reading text strategy which has a high possibility
well so that they did not pass the in helping the students’ reading
standard quality of the school achievement.
(KKM). The students’ failure in Prediction is a pre-reading
passing the examination target is due activity. According to Smith (1994),
to many factors; one of them is the prediction is the prior elimination of
strategy applied by the teacher. unlikely alternatives. It is the core of
Students often find difficulty to reading. All of our prior knowledge
understand the new text without of places and situations enable us to
having background knowledge.
 3

predict when we read and thus to research were reading test and
comprehend and enjoy what we read. questionnaire.
The strategy used by English
teachers in teaching reading must be RESULT AND DISCUSSION
adjusted to the kinds of reading text RESULT
for example procedure, descriptive, The data of this research were
argumentative and narrative text. taken from students in class VIII G
Among the texts which are as the sample. The result of
mentioned above the researcher improvement of students’ reading
concerned on descriptive text, comprehension achievement was
because the students were easier in obtained through pre-test and
activate their background knowledge posttest. Whereas, the result of the
when the prediction strategy applied. students’ response towards the
In the previous study done by implementation of prediction
Trisia (2014), the result showed that strategy was obtained from the
prediction strategy could help the questionnaire. From the research, it
readers increase their ability to was found that the mean scores of
comprehend the text. Therefore the students’ reading comprehension in
researcher conducts prediction posttest was higher than that of
strategy in the second grade students pretest. The table 1. shows about the
of SMP Negeri 18 Bandar Lampung improvement of students’ reading
in order not only to find out how comprehension after being taught
prediction strategy can be used in through prediction strategy.
reading class to increase the students To find out the aspect the reading
reading comprehension but also to aspects that improve the most the
find out the students response researcher compared the means of
towards the implementation of students reading comprehension in
prediction strategy. pretest and post test in each reading
comprehension aspects. There were
METHOD five reading aspects which measured
This research was intended to in this research. They were main
find out whether prediction strategy idea, specific information, reference,
could improve students’ reading inference and vocabulary. The
comprehension. So, in this research, comparison of students’ result of
quantitative research was applied reading comprehension’ aspects
using one-group pre-test posttest before treatment and after treatment
design since there was only one could be seen on the table 2.
experimental class which received The table 2. shows the difference
treatments and also got pre-test and where each aspect of students’
posttest. This research also used reading comprehension achievement
descriptive method to find out the in SMP Negeri 18 Bandar Lampung
students’ response towards the increase.
implementation of prediction Based on table 2, prediction
strategy in teaching reading. The strategy improved the students’
subjects in this research were 35 reading comprehension in all aspects
students of clas VIII G of SMP N 18 of reading comprehension,
Bandar Lampung. The instruments determining main idea from 1,45 to
used for collecting data in this 4,60 and the gain is 3,14, specific
information from 3,97 to 6,45 and vocabulary from 2,02 to 6,05 and the
the gain is 2,48, Inference from 4,37 gain is 4,02. It could be said that
to 7,20 and the gain is 2,82, prediction strategy could improve the
reference from 4,17 to 7,20 and the students’ reading comprehension in
gain is 3,02, and the last is all aspects of reading.

Table 1. The Mean Score of Table 2. The Improvement of

Pretest and Posttest Reading Aspects
Paired Samples Statistics No Aspect of Pre Post Gain
Std. Std. Reading test Test
Deviatio Error 1 Main Idea 1,45 4,60 3,14
Mean N n Mean 2 Specific 3,97 6,45 2,48
Pair Pre 41,9286 35 7,02113 1,18679 Information
1 test
3 Inference 4,37 7,20 2,82
Post 78,7857 35 6,78914 1,14757
test 4 Reference 4,17 7,20 3,02
5 Vocabulary 2,02 6,05 4,02

Table 3. Paired Samples Test

Paired Differences
95% Confidence
Std. Interval of the
Std. Error Difference Sig. (2-
Mean Deviation Mean Lower Upper t df tailed)
Pair posttest 14,74286 3,75220 ,63424 13,45393 16,03178 23,245 34 ,000
1 - pretest

Graph 1. The Increase of Students’ Score of Five Aspects of Reading

8
7
6
5
4 Pretest
3 Post Test
2
1
0
Main Idea Specific Inference Reference Vocabulary
Information
 The table 3. is about hypothesis Based on the graph 1. the use of
testing. It shows that t value is prediction strategy can improve the
23.245 and t-table is 2.042. It means students’ reading comprehension
that t-value is higher than t-table. achievement in all aspects of
The sig.2 tailed is 0.00 (<0.05). reading; the gain of determining
Therefore, for the nul hypothesis is main idea is 3,14, the gain of specific
rejected and the first hypothesis is information is 2,48, the gain of
accepted. Then, from the output it inference is 2,82, the gain of
can bee seen that significance value reference is 3,02, and the gain of
shows that p<0.05 (p= ,000). vocabulary is 4,02. Moreover,
Besides that, Based on the result of prediction strategy improved the
questionnaire, the students gave students’ reading aspects especially
positive response towards the in vocabulary.
implementation of prediction Vocabulary has the highest
strategy, there were 24 students or improvement that other aspects of
68% gave positive response and 11 reading. In vocabulary test items the
students or 32% gave negative students were asked to find out the
response. word which has the synonym as the
one on the question. It helped the
DISCUSSION students to build up their knowledge
The result of pretest and posttest about the material especially
in class VIII G shows that there is an vocabulary the text. The researcher
increase of students reading assumes that this type of question i.e
comprehension after being taught vocabulary, has the highest gain
through prediction strategy is since the students only needed to
significant (p<0.05, p=0.000), It find the proper word to answer the
indicates that the hypothesis question. Vocabulary is a list of
accepted. The hypothesis is “there is words often defined or translated.
significant improvement of students’ This type of question does not
reading comprehension achievement require students to make their own
after being taught by using prediction conclusion to find the answer.
strategy”. In other words, prediction On the other hand, specific
strategy can improve students’ information has the lowest gain from
reading achievement in each aspect the others reading aspects. Francoice
of reading. The increase can be seen (1998) states that supporting details
by comparing the means score of provide the reader with more
students reading comprehension in information about main idea or
pretest and post test in each reading subject of a pessage. They are pieces
comprehension aspects. of information that help the reader to
There are five reading aspects see the big picture in the text. The
which were measured in this students were asked to find the detail
research. They are specific information in the text. It requires the
information, main idea, inference, students to read the text carefully to
reference, and vocabulary. The make sure that they did not miss the
comparison of students’ result of information.
reading comprehension aspects The result of questionnaire show
before treatment and after treatment that the students gave positive
can be seen on the graph 1. response or they felt satisfied on
 6

prediction strategy as a teaching improvement of students’

technique. They also gave an active reading comprehension
participation because the picture achieement after the treatment
helped students’ to built up their was given while the result of
background knowledge. It also hypothesis shows the sig. level
helped them to predict the contents is lower than alpha (.000 <
of the text. 0,05). It could be concluded that
Almost all of students in the class the use of prediction strategy
are satisfied and agree that prediction improved students’ reading
strategy as a teaching technique comprehension of descriptive
could improve their reading text in all reading aspects. The
comprehension. Unfortunately there aspects of reading that improve
are some students still have the most is vocabulary and
difficulties predicting the content of specific information has the
the text. For their basic perception of lowest improvement among
the technique, more than half other aspects of reading.
students in the class thought that 2. Vocabulary has the most
prediction strategy is effective in increase aspect because
improving their reading prediction strategy could
comprehension. develop their ability to find out
The description above has flowed the word which has the same
to a single conclusion that prediction meaning with word on the
strategy has a positive impact on question. It does not require
students’ reading comprehension students to make their own
achievement where it could increase conclusion to find the answer.
the students’ reading comprehension 3. The result of the questionnaire
in all aspects. It caused by the fact shows that most of students in
that in prediction strategy the teacher the class gave positive response
ask the students to apply their to prediction strategy teaching
background knowledge and help technique in reading descriptive
them to predict the text in order to text.
comprehend the passage
SUGGESTIONS
CONCLUSIONS 1. Suggestions for the teacher:
Based on the research at the second a. English teachers are
grade of SMP Negeri 18 Bandar recommended to apply
Lampung and analyzing the data, the prediction strategy as the
researcher draws the conclusion as alternative way in teaching
follows: reading using descriptive
1. There is a significant text because it can help the
improvement of students’ students in comprehending
reading comprehension the text easier.
achievement in descriptive text b. Teacher should not too much
after being taught by using concern on the students who
prediction strategy. From the answer in English, because
gain of pretest and posttest that the students will be easier to
is 18,36, the researcher stated express their idea in
that there is a significant indonesian. It can help the
 7

students easier to relate their applying prediction

prior knowledge to the strategy. Medan:
material. Universitas Sumatera
c. English teachers can use Utara.
another type of text such as Hatch, E., & Farhady, H. 1982.
narrative, recount, report, etc Research Design and
in prediction strategy. It will Statistic for Applied
make the students easier to Linguistics. London:
comprehend the text. New Bury House.
2. Suggestions for further Markstein, L., & Hirasawa, L. 1982.
researchers Expanding Reading
a. Further researchers may Skills. Massachusetts:
conduct research using this Newburry House
strategy on different level of Publisher.
students. It can be applied in Setiyadi, B. 2006. Metode Penelitian
senior high school students Untuk Pengajaran Bahasa
or university students. Asing. Yogyakarta: Graha Ilmu.
b. Further researchers can Shohamy, E. 1985. A Practical
apply prediction strategy in Handbook in Language Testing
another English skill for for Second Language
example writing skill. Teacher.Tel Aviv: Tel Aviv
University.
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