Improving students’ reading comprehension through prediction strategy at grade VIII SMP Negeri 2 Padangsidimpuan

This research was done to solve the students’ problems in reading comprehension. The purposes of this research were: to describe the students’ reading comprehension through Prediction Strategy at Grade VIII-11 SMP Negeri 2 Padangsidimpuan and to identify the factors which influenced students’ reading comprehension through Prediction Strategy at Grade VIII-11 SMP Negeri 2 Padangsidimpuan. Research methodology that used in this research was classroom action research by implementing the Kemmis design which consisted of four steps as; planning, acting, observing, and reflecting. To solve the students’ problems in reading comprehension, the researcher applied Prediction Strategy. The researcher used two cycles; every cycle consisted of two meetings. Moreover, the participants of this research were the class of VIII-11 (27 students) and there was collaboration with an English teacher. Meanwhile, the data was derived from reading comprehension tests, observation, and interview. Students’ score in cycle 1 was 66.85 (25.92%) and students’ score in cycle 2 was 73.51 (51.85%). From the students’ mean score in cycle 1, it did not pass the KKM (Minimum Mastery Criterion). Then, the researcher continued into cycle 2. Based on the research result in cycle 1 and cycle 2, it showed the improvement of students’ mean score and students’ percentage. So, students’ improvement in reading comprehension through prediction strategy was enough category. Students’ problems were students still low, students were lack motivation in reading, seldom to practie, and lack of attention about the important of reading. Problems solving were; taught them to reconstruct the words that they knew be an interpreting as predict the meaning of the words; asked them to learn more vocabulary items by them selves; asked them to use their background knowledge in understanding the text