The effects of vocabulary preteaching and prequestioning technique and pictorial context and prequestioning technique on the reading comprehension achievement of the sixth grade of Elementary School pupils

Learning a language means acquiring a set of skills, namely, reading, listening, speaking and writing. However, from those four skills, reading is the important skill that pupils should have. Even though reading is important, many pupils do not like their reading class. It is because pupils usually have some difficulties in comprehending a text, such as lack of vocabulary, have difficulty in using language cues to meaning, and lack of background knowledge (Taglieber 1988:455472). To overcome those problems, the writer tried to use pre-reading activities in teaching reading. In this study, there were two techniques that were compared and used. The first was a vocabulary preteaching and prequestioning technique, which was given as the treatment in class VI A; and the second was a pictorial context and prequestioning technique, which was given as the treatment in class VI B. The writer used them as the way they were. So this study was called a quasi-experimental post-test only study. There were six treatments and one posttest for both classes. After collecting the data the writer calculated the mean difference by using t test. She also determined the level of significance of the test, that is 5% or 0,05, which meant that if the study were repeated 100 times under the same condition, the opportunity of making a mistake is maximally 5%. Then as a result, at the level of significance 5%, she got the ttable of 1.658 and the tobservation (to) of 2.15. Since the ttable was less than tobservation (to), then the writer rejected the Ho which meant that there was a significant difference between the use of the vocabulary preteaching and prequestioning technique and the use of the pictorial context and prequestioning technique in pre-reading activities as a means to teach reading comprehension. All in all, the writer suggested to the teachers to pay attention to the prereading activities and be careful in choosing the technique for pre-reading activities. It is because the successful of the pupils in comprehending a reading passage depend on this activity. The writer also expected that the result of this study would improve the teaching-learning activities especially in the reading class