The Use of DRTA Strategy for Improving Student's Reading Comprehension (Classroom Action Research)

h. abdul manan; dr.ir. suciana wijirahayu, m.pd; hamzah puadi ilyas, ph.d;

This research aims to improve the reading comprehension of the eleventh grade students of state senior high school in central Jakarta in academic year of 2016/2017 using Directed Reading Thinking Activity (DRTA) Strategy. This was an action research design. The researcher conducted the research in collaboration with the English teacher of senior high school in central Jakarta. The research was conducted in two cycles following the cyclical action research model consisting planning, acting, observing, and reflecting. The subjects of this research were 36 students from class XI.MIA.II. In this research, there were two types of data, i.e. qualitative and quantitative data. The qualitative data consisted the field notes obtained from observations and the interview transcripts obtained from interviews with the students and research collaborator. Meanwhile, the quantitative data is in the forms of students’ reading comprehension scores obtained from reading comprehension test (a pre-test and post-test). Finally, the quantitative data were analyzed by comparing the student’s average value. The findings of this research suggest improvement in the students’ reading comprehension ability. Improvements in students’ reading comprehension ability occurred particularly in the ability to find out the main idea, the identified important information, the deduction the meaning of unfamiliar lexical items, understanding references, and making inferences. In cycle 1, the students’ first post-test mean score was 71.22, it was higher than their pre-test mean score, which were 60.33. Likewise, in cycle 2, the students’ second post-test mean score was 85, it was also higher than their first post-test mean score, which were 71.22. In addition, there were also improvements in the teaching and learning process of reading. Showed by students participated actively in the teaching and learning activities of reading, especially during DRTA activities.