The Effectiveness of the Paraphrasing Strategy on Reading Comprehension in Yogyakarta City

This study aims to find out (1) to know effectiveness or not of the paraphrasing strategy measured by seeing reading interest in the literal and inferential reading comprehension abilities, and (2) the contributions of the reading interest to literal and inferential comprehension between the students learning through the paraphrasing strategy and those learning without the paraphrasing strategy. This study employed a quasi-experimental design. The research population comprised all eight classes of MTs Kota Yogyakarta. The sample was selected by using the cluster random sampling technique for determining the experimental and control groups. The data were collected by using (1) a test to measure abilities in literal and inferential comprehension on English reading, and (2) a questionnaire using the Likert scale to measure reading interest using four alternative answers by consideration to find accurate data. The data analysis techniquesemployed the multivariate analysis of covariance and regression. The results of the study are as follows. (1) There is a effectiveness paraphrasing strategy measured by seeing reading interest in the literal and inferential reading comprehension abilities by itself and both of them, indicated by F = 6.410 at sig. (0.015) < ? = 0.05 and F = 5.859 at sig. (0.020) < ? = 0.05 and F = 7.456 at sig. (0.009) < ? = 0.05. (2) There are contributions differences of the reading interest to literal and inferential comprehension using the paraphrasing strategy by itself and both of them, namely 17.2% and 17.9% and 21.6% respectively, and without the paraphrasing strategy, the contributions are 16.5% and 15.7% and 16.8% respectively. Reading interest using the paraphrasing strategy and without the paraphrasing strategy is in the low level, in which the means are 72.73 and 70.61, below the ideal mean of 80. Keywords: paraphrasing strategy, reading interest, literal and inferential comprehensio