USING STRUCTURE STRATEGY TO IMPROVE READING COMPREHENSION OF GRADE VIII STUDENTS OF SMP 1 WONOSARI IN THE ACADEMIC YEAR OF 2012/2013

The objective of this research was to improve students’ reading comprehension of grade VIII students of SMP 1 Wonosari in the Academic year of 2012/2013 through the use of structure strategy during the reading activity in the classroom. This research was categorized into action research. The subjects of the research were the students at grade eight of SMP 1 Wonosari in the Academic year of 2012/2013. The instruments used in this research were observation checklists, interview guidelines, tests and camera. The data were collected in two forms, qualitative and quantitative data. The qualitative data were collected by observing the teaching learning process and interviewing the students. The quantitative data were obtained by conducting pretest and posttest for the students. Assembling data, coding the data, comparing the data, building meaning and interpretation and reporting outcomes were the stages of the data analysis to analyze the qualitative data. Meanwhile, the quantitative data were analyzed to find mean and standard deviation scores from tests. There were five validities that were used, democratic validity, outcome validity, process validity, catalytic validity and dialogic validity. The research results show that the students’ reading comprehension skills improved through the use of structure strategy. The group discussion when applying structure strategy changed the students from the passive readers into active readers. The students became aware of the structure that underline the text and they could obtain message from the text. By using structure strategy, they also were trained to guess meaning from the context. Guessing meaning from context solved the students’ problems related to the lack of vocabulary in comprehending texts