The effectiveness of using read aloud and think aloud techniques on reading comprehension skill : An experimental and comparative study at the second grade of MTs Tanjungsiang in academic year 2020/2021

In English language learning process, reading becomes an important skill, because it includes many competencies, such as reading comprehension. Based on the preliminary observation in an Indonesian junior high school, many students are usually difficult to find the main idea, finding specific information, vocabulary, and reference in a reading passage. They also get difficult to read a text. Improving students’ reading comprehension ability is not easy. The students need some treatments or appropriate techniques to improve their reading comprehension skill. This study proposed Read Aloud and Think Aloud techniques as the strategy to improve student’s reading comprehension skill. This research aimed (1) to find out the students’ reading comprehension skill by using read aloud; (2) to find out the students’ reading comprehension skill by using think aloud; (3) to find out the comparison and the effective techniques between the use of read aloud and think aloud on reading comprehension skill. In this study, true experimental design with group comparison was chosen. The population was eighth-grade students of MTs Tanjungsiang in Academic Year 2020/2021. This research took two classes as the sample and used group random sampling technique to assign the participants. After lottery randomizing the classes, 8A (Read-Aloud) class consisting 40 students and 8B (Think-Aloud) class consisting 48 students are the sample in this study. The instrument of this study was reading comprehension test used in pre-test and post-test. Student’s scores were processed in statistical analysis. The results of the analysis show that using read aloud and think aloud reading strategies can improve students' reading comprehension skill. The independent t-test in SPSS revealed that the t-count was 2.548, while the t-table for (a) – 5% was 2.126 (t-count 2.548 > t-table 2.126), indicating that the null hypothesis (H0) is rejected and (Ha) is accepted. Furthermore, the N-Gain score shows that the experimental group 2 was classed as Average, which is higher than the experimental group 1, which was classified as Low. To conclude, there is a significant difference in the scores of both experimental groups. In conclusion, think aloud reading strategy is effective in improving students' reading comprehension skill. For further study, think aloud is suggested