Activity 3:

Level of Reading Comprehension among High School Learners

Statement of the Problem

This study generally seeks to measure the level of reading comprehension

among high school learners.

Specifically, it tries to answer the following question;

1. What is the level of comprehension among high school students?

2. What are the reading exercises provided to the students?

3. How do these students comprehend a sample text?

4. What are the factors upon their comprehension?

Scope and Limitation of the Study

The scope of the study focuses on the high school students. These are the

students who are actively present in the school. There is no elementary student, only the

secondary level.
Significance of the Study

High school students are the last stage of a student before entering the

College and University live. At this stage the level of understanding English is around

Intermediate to Advanced level. This can be seen from the curriculum and expected

outcomes in learning English. High school students have learned about various types of

texts in English. This can be seen from the exam questions they will face, namely the

National Examination and the College Entrance Examination. Therefore, reading

comprehension skills are very important and useful for high school students. Reading

comprehension itself is an advanced level of reading and / or reading skills. At least there

are two levels of reading; the initial level and level of reading comprehension. The initial

level is teaching reading where the teacher introduces to students orthographic writing in

separate alphabetical order. At this point, the teacher generally teaches students some

basic English vocabulary to contextualize phonemic knowledge of letters. Meanwhile,

reading comprehension is a higher reading skill level.

Review of Related Literature

English is considered the first foreign language to be studied in Indonesia. Studied as a

compulsory school subject in junior high school. Middle and high school students are

considered as teenagers or young adults whose ages range from thirteen to eighteen years.

These kinds of students are in the age of puberty, as Brown (2001: 92) stated that

students at that age are in a period of transition, confusion, self-awareness, growth and

changes in body and mind. In other words, adolescent students are in a transition age

between children becoming adults. They experience a growth process that makes some

changes to their body and mind, and sometimes the transition process makes them

confused. That can be a number of factors that need to be considered in teaching English

for teenagers.

Reading is often associated with the process of interaction between readers and texts that

are usually quiet, internal and personal (Alderson, 2000: 3). This means that there are

many things that happen when reading. The understanding of how people interpret

written texts to gain knowledge or understand messages. These processes involve three

components, namely the writer, the text and the reader.

Nuttall (2000: 4) also defines reading as a process. He connects reading with the

communication process and states that reading means releasing messages from the text as

much as possible. In other words, the writers as the code maker have something to share

with others during the process. To make it happen, the authors puts their ideas into words

as text. While the reader plays the role of a decoder, which can crack the code or

construct the meaning of the text, before the message enters the reader’s mind and finally

communication is reached.
Activity 8:

Level of Reading Comprehension among High School Learners

Introduction

The ability to read opens new knowledge and opportunities, especially the ability to read

texts in foreign languages (English). This allows students to get information, pleasure and

do many other things that are done by the world community due to information obtained

from reading. Better reading skills also enable people to be successful in academics

(Iftanti, 2015). A current study showed that the better the reading skills students have, the

better students in achieving knowledge (Akbaşl𝚤, Şahin,&Yaykiran, 2016). But in fact,

the English language skills of students and society in Indonesia are still less than those of

neighboring countries; Malaysia, Singapore and Brunei Darrusalam. This is in line with

the ability to read and understand English-language texts by students. As a student the

ability to read and understand text is very important to get the information contained in

the text. Therefore, improving the quality of students’ reading comprehension is needed

to help not only in terms of English language learning, but also to improve the quality of

students’ overall knowledge.

Statement of the Problem

This study generally seeks to measure the level of reading comprehension

among high school learners.

Specifically, it tries to answer the following question;

1. What is the level of comprehension among high school students?

2. What are the reading exercises provided to the students?

3. How do these students comprehend a sample text?

4. What are the factors upon their comprehension?

The scope of the study focuses on the high school students. These are the

students who are actively present in the school. There is no elementary student, only the

secondary level.

Significance of the Study

High school students are the last stage of a student before entering the

College and University live. At this stage the level of understanding English is around

Intermediate to Advanced level. This can be seen from the curriculum and expected

outcomes in learning English. High school students have learned about various types of

texts in English. This can be seen from the exam questions they will face, namely the

National Examination and the College Entrance Examination. Therefore, reading

comprehension skills are very important and useful for high school students. Reading

comprehension itself is an advanced level of reading and / or reading skills. At least there

are two levels of reading; the initial level and level of reading comprehension. The initial

level is teaching reading where the teacher introduces to students orthographic writing in

separate alphabetical order. At this point, the teacher generally teaches students some

basic English vocabulary to contextualize phonemic knowledge of letters. Meanwhile,

reading comprehension is a higher reading skill level.

English is considered the first foreign language to be studied in Indonesia. Studied as a

compulsory school subject in junior high school. Middle and high school students are

considered as teenagers or young adults whose ages range from thirteen to eighteen years.

These kinds of students are in the age of puberty, as Brown (2001: 92) stated that

students at that age are in a period of transition, confusion, self-awareness, growth and

changes in body and mind. In other words, adolescent students are in a transition age

between children becoming adults. They experience a growth process that makes some

changes to their body and mind, and sometimes the transition process makes them

confused. That can be a number of factors that need to be considered in teaching English

for teenagers.

Reading is often associated with the process of interaction between readers and texts that

are usually quiet, internal and personal (Alderson, 2000: 3). This means that there are

many things that happen when reading. The understanding of how people interpret

written texts to gain knowledge or understand messages. These processes involve three

components, namely the writer, the text and the reader.

Nuttall (2000: 4) also defines reading as a process. He connects reading with the

communication process and states that reading means releasing messages from the text as

much as possible. In other words, the writers as the code maker have something to share

with others during the process. To make it happen, the authors puts their ideas into words

as text. While the reader plays the role of a decoder, which can crack the code or

construct the meaning of the text, before the message enters the reader’s mind and finally

communication is reached.
Methodology

Research Design

This study took data in several articles about English teaching in High School

using purposive sampling technique. According to Sugiyono (2016: 85) purposive

sampling is a technique of sampling data sources with certain considerations, the initial

consideration in determining the sample. The data sources were obtained through internet

by browsing the key words (library research).This study used observation and

documentation techniques to obtain research data. Observation technique was applied by

observing the articles, the articles were in the form of a document collected and listed by

researcher. The data were words and sentences from the articles. At the stage of data

analysis was using thematic analysis methods. This analysis was used to find out what

problems exist in the teaching and learning process of understanding reading English

texts by high school students.

Participants

High School Students

Sampling

Purposive Sampling
Data Gathering Procedure

The first step in any qualitative analysis is reading, and re-reading the transcripts.

In this stages the research data is comprehend thoroughly. The second phase, researcher

started to organize the data in a meaningful and systematic way. Coding reduces lots of

data into small chunks of meaning. There are different ways to code and the method will

be determined by perspective and research questions. In this stage, the data is grouped

considered on similarity. The focus of each group is given code. The data can be based

from the origin or sources, the similar semantic aspect and etc.
Activity 10, Number 2:

1. What is the level of your reading comprehension?

a. Can you understand directly what is meant in a certain story?

2. What are the different reading exercises you are being exposed?

a. Do you find this effective?

3. How do you comprehend a certain text?

4. What are some factors in your comprehension?