THE ROLE OF SCHEMATA IN THE READING COMPREHENSION OF HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS (A CASE STUDY AT SMU NEGERI V SURABAYA)

People in their daily activities are always related to reading activities. For the reason of gaining information, laymen read newspapers or magazines ; in order to add new knowledge of certain topics, writers read useful materials; and students read books to get information and knowledge neededfor their study. Related to this point of view, reading seems to be an essential point that takes an important role in life. In reading, everyone needs to understand or comprehend the text. Comprehending a text means making sense of the reading text itself to extract the information carried in it. Making sense of the reading text direct people to the concept of schemata introduced by Bartlett in 1932. Schemata are said to be an organised background knowledge which can be activated in certain conditions (Swales, 1990 : 83). According to McNeil, as one tries to comprehend a text, he or she at the same time activates his or her schemata to fit in with the situated conditions. The problem arises in this study is a question whether schemata also affect the high school students. In this research, the writer takes the sample from the students of science class (III IPA 8) of SMU Negeri V Surabaya. The writer gives them two tests: test A and test B. Test A is about biology and test B is about history. The results show that the students can answer test B better than test A. It is because the students' history scores are better than their biology scores. Therefore, it is proven that schemata affect the students' reading comprehension