IMPROVING STUDENTS’ READING COMPREHENSION IN

NARRATIVE TEXT THROUGH PICTURE SERIES AT THE FIRST

GRADE STUDENTS OF SMA NEGERI 3 METRO
(A Script)

By:
Dera Rahmah Hidayah

FACULTY OF TEACHER TRAINING AND EDUCATION

UNIVERSITY OF LAMPUNG
BANDAR LAMPUNG
2018
 ABSTRACT

IMPROVING STUDENTS’ READING COMPREHENSION IN

NARRATIVE TEXT THROUGH PICTURE SERIES AT THE FIRST
GRADE STUDENTS OF SMA NEGERI 3 METRO

by

Dera Rahmah Hidayah

Reading is one of language skills, which is very complex for the students to learn
because reading has many components, such as: (1) main idea, (2) specific
information, (3) reference, (4) inference, and (5) vocabulary. This research is
intended to find out whether there is improvement in students’ reading
comprehension in narrative text after being taught by using picture series, which
aspects of reading that improved the most, and how students’ responses about the
use of picture series in teaching reading narrative text.

The population of this research was the first grade students of SMA Negeri 3
Metro in the academic year 2017/2018. The sample of this research was class X
IPA 5 which consisted of 30 students. This research was conducted from January
29th to February 23rd 2018. This research applied one group pretest and posttest
design. The data were analyzed by using repeated measure T-test. The data of
questionnaire were analyzed by using SPSS 16.0.

The result of this research showed that picture series improved students’ reading
comprehension. Objectively, it could be shown from the students’ pretest and
posttest scores. The total scores in pretest was 61.30 and in the post test was
81.60. The gain was 20.30. The aspect of reading that improved the most was
getting specific information.

The data of students’ responses questionnaire were analyzed to find out whether
the questionnaire is reliable or not. The computation showed that the reliability
coefficient of the questionnaire was 0.829. It indicates that all items in the
questionnaire were reliable so that it could be used to find out students’ appraisal.

In summary, it can be concluded that the implementation of picture series could

improve the students’ narrative text reading comprehension and specific
information as the aspect of reading that improved the most. Moreover, the
students gave good responses towards this media in teaching reading.

Key words: reading, picture series, narrative text

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 IMPROVING STUDENTS’ READING COMPREHENSION IN
NARRATIVE TEXT THROUGH PICTURE SERIES AT THE FIRST
GRADE STUDENTS OF SMA NEGERI 3 METRO

By:
Dera Rahmah Hidayah

A Script
Submitted in a Partial Fulfillment of
The Requirements for S-1 Degree
In
The Language and Arts Department of
Teacher Training and Education Faculty

FACULTY OF TEACHER TRAINING AND EDUCATION

UNIVERSITY OF LAMPUNG
BANDAR LAMPUNG
2018

ii
ii
iii
iv
 CURRICULUM VITAE

The researcher’s name is Dera Rahmah Hidayah. She was born on January 17th,
1996 in Metro, Lampung. She is the second child of Muhammad Saukan and Sri
Winarsih.

She joined Handayani Kindergarden in 2001. She continued her study in SD N 9

Metro and graduated in 2008. After that, she registered in SMP N 3 Metro and
graduated in 2011. Then, in the same year, she studied in SMA N 3 Metro and
graduated in 2014.

She was accepted in English Education Study Program of Teacher Training and
Education Faculty in Lampung University in 2014. She did PPL and KKN in July
to September 2017. She taught the studuents at SMA N 1 Gunung Labuhan, Way
Kanan.

vi
 DEDICATION

I offer up my praise and gratitude to Allah SWT for the abundant blessing to me,

then I proudly dedicate this script to:

My beloved parents: Muhammad Saukan and Sri Winarsih

My sister and brother : Detha Zetia Rahma Wati and Fadilah Saputra

My friends in English Education Study Program 2014

My Almamater, Lampung University

vii
 MOTTO

Call upon me, I will respond to you...

( Surah Ghafir 40:60)

viii
 ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

Praise and thanks go to the Almighty God, Allah SWT for the gracious mercy and
tremendous blessing so that I am finally able to finish this script entitled
“Improving Students’ Reading Comprehension in Narrative Text through Picture
Series at The First Grade Students of SMA Negeri 3 Metro”. This script is
submitted as compulsory fulfillment of the requirements for S1 degree of English
Education.

In this case, I would like to express my deep gratitude and respect for those who
have well contribution in helping and supporting me to finish this script.

1. Prof. Ag. Bambang Setiyadi, M.A., Ph.D. as the first advisor, for his
criticism, motivation and encouragement in supporting me.
2. Drs. Basturi Hasan, M.Pd., as the second advisor, for his great ideas,
guidance and carefulness in correcting my research.
3. Dr. Ari Nurweni, M.A., as the examiner, for her encouragement, ideas, and
suggestions in supporting the research.
4. Dr. Ari Nurweni, M.A., as the Chief of English Education Study Program and
all lecturers of English Education Study Program who have contributed their
guidance during the completion process until accomplishing this research.
5. Ibnu Budi Cahyana, S.Sos, M.Pd., as the headmaster of SMA N 3 Metro, for
giving me permission to conduct the research.
6. Sungatiyan Warsih, S.Pd., as the English teacher of SMA N 3 Metro who has
helped much and given her full support for this research. Also all the students
of X IPA 5 year 2017/2018, for the participation as the subject of this
research
7. For the greatest parents in the world, Muhammad Saukan and Sri Winarsih,
thank you for your endless love, for teaching me to be serious in doing
everything, for supporting me to finish my script soon, for reminding me

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 about my health, and the most important, for always praying for me to be a
good daughter.
8. My beloved sister and brother, Deta Zetia Rahmawati and Fadilah Saputra for
the love, the prayers, the spirit, and the faith in me.
9. My beloved soulmates in ‘LDR (Lelah Disiksa Revisi)’, Lia Puspitasari and
Reni Kurniasih, who always give me support and spirit. Thank you for
laughing and crying with me, also always being there through my good and
bad times. Thank you so much for being a great companion along the way in
finishing this script. Then, to my friend who has gone too soon, Vivil
Tanumarin Susilo (Alm), you were too great to ever be forgotten.
10. All English Departments’14: A class and B class that I cannot mention the
name one by one.
11. My KKN and PPL team in Gunung Labuhan, Way Kanan, who have given
great experiences. Bunch of thanks for the memorable friendship.
12. Anyone who cannot be mentioned directly who has contributed in finishing
this script.

Finally, I realize that this script still has many weakness. Therefore, comments,
critiques, and suggestion are always opened for better reasearch. Somehow, I hope
this research would give a positive contribution to the educational development,
the readers and those who want to accomplish further research.

Bandar Lampung, 3 Agustus 2018

Dera Rahmah Hidayah

x
 TABLE OF CONTENTS

ABSTRACT .......................................................................................... i
COVER ................................................................................................. ii
APPROVAL .......................................................................................... iii
ADMISSION ......................................................................................... iv
STATEMENT LETTER ....................................................................... v
CURRICULUM VITAE ....................................................................... vi
DEDICATION ...................................................................................... vii
MOTTO ................................................................................................. viii
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT ..................................................................... ix
TABLE OF CONTENTS ...................................................................... xi

I. INTRODUCTION
1.1. Background of Problem .......................................................... 1
1.2. Identification of Problem ........................................................ 5
1.3. Limitation of Problem ............................................................. 6
1.4. Formulation of Research Question........................................... 6
1.5. Objectives of The Research .................................................... 6
1.6. Uses of The Research .............................................................. 7
1.7. Scope of The Research ............................................................ 7
1.8. Definition of Terms ................................................................. 8

II. LITERATURE REVIEW

2.1. Review of Previous Research .................................................. 10
2.2. Concept of Reading Skill ........................................................ 12
2.3. Concept of Reading Comprehension ...................................... 13
2.4. Aspects of Reading Skill.......................................................... 14
2.5. Concept of Macro and Micro Skills of Reading ..................... 21
2.6. Narrative Text ......................................................................... 26
2.7. Notion of Teaching Reading ................................................... 28
2.7.1. Teaching Reading Narrative Text ................................. 30
2.7.2. Instructional Media ....................................................... 31
2.7.3. Visual Aids .................................................................... 31
2.7.4. Picture Series ................................................................. 32
2.8. Procedure of Teaching Reading
Through Picture Series ............................................................ 35
2.9. Advantages and Disadvantages of Picture Series
In Teaching Reading ............................................................... 40
2.10. Theoretical Assumption ........................................................ 41
2.11. Hypothesis ............................................................................. 42

III. METHODS
3.1. Research Design ...................................................................... 43
3.2. Population and Sample ............................................................ 44

xi
 3.3. Data Collecting Technique ...................................................... 44
3.4. Research Instruments .............................................................. 46
3.4.1. Reading Test .................................................................. 46
3.4.2. Questionnaire ................................................................ 47
3.5. Criteria of Good Test ............................................................... 47
3.5.1. Validity .......................................................................... 47
3.5.2. Reliability ...................................................................... 49
3.5.3. Level of Difficulties ...................................................... 50
3.5.4. Discrimination Power .................................................... 51
3.6. Scoring System ....................................................................... 52
3.7. Research Procedures ............................................................... 52
3.7.1. Planning ......................................................................... 52
3.7.2. Aplication ...................................................................... 53
3.8. Data Analysis .......................................................................... 54
3.9. Data Treatment ........................................................................ 54
3.10. Hypothesis Testing ................................................................ 55
3.11. Schedule of The Research ...................................................... 56

IV. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

4.1. Results of The Research .......................................................... 57
4.1.1. Results of The Try-out Test .......................................... 57
4.1.2. Results of Pre-test .......................................................... 59
4.1.3. Treatment Implementation ............................................ 60
4.1.4. Results of Post-test ........................................................ 61
4.1.5. Results of Students’ Questionnaire ............................... 62
4.1.6. The Differences of Students’ Reading Comprehension
in Pre-test and Post-test ................................................. 63
4.1.7. Results of Reading Aspects ........................................... 65
4.1.8. Normality Test ............................................................... 74
4.1.9. Hypothesis Testing ........................................................ 75
4.2. Discussion of The Findings ..................................................... 76

V. CONCLUSIONS AND SUGGESTIONS

5.1. Conclusions ............................................................................. 81
5.2. Suggestions ............................................................................. 82

REFERENCES
APPENDICES

xii
 LIST OF TABLES

Table 3.1. Specification of Try Out ......................................................... 47

Table 3.2. Schedule of Class Activities .................................................... 56
Table 4.1. Distribution Frequency of Pretest ........................................... 60
Table 4.2. Distribution Frequency of Posttest .......................................... 62
Table 4.3. The Reliability of The Questionnaire ...................................... 63
Table 4.4. The Differences Students’ Score of Pretest and Posttest ......... 64
Table 4.5. The Mean Score of Pretest ....................................................... 64
Table 4.6. The Mean Score of Posttest ..................................................... 64
Table 4.7. The Result of Paired Sample T-test ......................................... 65
Table 4.8. The Distribution of Main Idea ................................................ 66
Table 4.9. The Significant Improvement of Main Idea ............................ 67
Table 4.10. The Distribution of Specific Information ................................ 67
Table 4.11. The Significant Improvement of Specific Information ........... 68
Table 4.12. The Distribution of Inference .................................................. 69
Table 4.13. The Significant Improvement of Inference ............................. 70
Table 4.14. The Distribution of Reference.................................................. 70
Table 4.15. The Significant Improvement of Reference............................. 71
Table 4.16. The Distribution of Vocabulary .............................................. 72
Table 4.17. The Significant Improvement of Vocabulary .......................... 73
Table 4.18. The Improvement of Five Aspects of Reading ........................ 73
Table 4.19. Repeated Measure T-Test ....................................................... 75

xiii
 LIST OF GRAPH

Graph 1. The Improvement of Students’ Reading Comprehension in Five

Aspects of Reading .................................................................. 74

xiv
 1

CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

This chapter discusses the background of the problem, identification of the

problem, limitation of the problem, formulation of research question, objectives of

the research, uses of the research, scopes of the research, and the definition of

terms.

1.1. Background of the problem

It has been generally confirmed that English as an international language used in

many fields all over the world. In addition, English is in general widely needed by

people, for example to transfer new modern science such as linguistics,

economics, politics, and also technology of information such as electronic

equipments, for example computer and handphone. More specifically, in the

domain of English which has both linguistic components e.g. morphology, syntax,

phonology; furthermore there are also four language skills e.g. listening, speaking,

reading, and writing which are required to master in English teaching program at

school.

It has been widely known that the purpose of teaching English language at school

is to develop the students’ language skills. One of the skills that cannot be

neglected is reading skill because the success of their studies depends on the

greater part of their abilities to read. By reading, the students are able to access

much information which might have otherwise been unavailable, especially

 2

English textbook. Therefore, reading skill should be given serious attention so that

the target designed can appropriately be achieved.

In relation to previous description, Dallman (1982: 23) mentions that reading is an

academic activity which is not only knowing what each alphabet stands for; but

reading involves more than word recognition; that comprehension is an essential

of reading. For this reason, Caldwell (2008: 4) states that comprehension in

reading is the process of extracting and constructing meaning through interaction

and involvement with written language. Comprehension is a major concerned, of

all teachers who used printed material in the classroom. Without comprehension

no reading takes place; thereby, comprehension is stressed in mastering reading.

It seems that to get information from the text is the main aim of reading activity.

Based on Cohen and Cowen (2008:43), there are three cues systems of reading in

getting information those are: 1) graphophonic cues deal with using phonics to

decode a word depends on alphabetic knowledge of letters, letter clusters and

corresponding sounds, 2) semantic cues which derive from the context of sentence

which provides the reader with essential information to unlock unknown words

and 3) syntactic cues which allow the reader to decode words from the grammar

and sentence structure. It can clearly be noted that reading comprehension is

defined as the level of understanding of a text. This understanding comes from the

interaction between the words that are written and how the students trigger

knowledge outside the text.

Naturally, reading skill is one of the language skills that is very complex, as it

involves: (1) determining main idea i.e. how to determine important information

of a paragraph, (2) identifying specific information i.e. how to identify particular

piece of information in the text, such as place, time and character, (3) finding

reference i.e. how to interpret and determine one linguistic expression to another,
 3

(4) making inference i.e. how to guess certain ideas from the information which

we have read or known, and (5) undestanding vocabulary i.e. how to determine

the meaning of vocabulary items from context. Whereas, in the guidelines of

school-based curriculum, it has stated that one of the objectives of teaching and

learning process in reading skill for Senior High School is that the students are

able to construct meaning from the text.

Unfortunately, there were some problems found that from students in Senior High

School 3 Metro during pre-observation that some of the students were not able to

(1) determine main idea, (2) find supporting detail, (3) find inference meaning, (4)

find reference, and (5) understand vocabulary as the target of the curriculum. A

few of the students in the class were hard to understand the text because they did

not know an appropriate strategy to comprehend the text. They sometimes felt that

English class especially reading class was not interesting. Presumably, this

condition was caused by the fact that most of the students did not study

efficiently.

In line with the illustration above, one of the factors that can cause students’

problem in reading comprehension is the strategy that the teacher used in teaching

reading. The teacher said they still used conventional strategy that makes reading

activity became passive and boring activity. The teacher only focused on giving

many texts to the students and asked them to answer the questions without seeing

whether the students were really able to do it or not. The reading materials which

were taken from students' textbook were monotonous so that they were not

interested in reading comprehension activity. Consequently, the students’ scores

of reading comprehension were relatively low. In contrast with statement Setiyadi

(2006) that the teacher considerably needs to provide the students with the right

techniques, so that they are optimally engaged in studying. One of the successful
 4

keys in teaching learning process may depend much on the method or strategies

the teachers employ in the classroom.

Facing the problem above, the teacher should attentively find the alternative way

to solve the problem. They should also consider some interesting techniques or

use interesting media to make the students understand easily. So, they can

increase their reading skill especially their skills in comprehension. In reading

comprehension there are five aspects that the students should improve. The five

aspects are main idea, inference, reference, specific information, and vocabulary.

Basically, in the teaching of reading, there are some media and techniques which

are effective to improve students’ reading comprehension. One of the media is

picture series. According to Kunzle (1973), picture series comprise of graphic art

for reproduction that told stories through the use of both picture and words.

Pictures series can be interesting thing to attract students in learning narrative text

because the stories that they convey accompanied by verbal expressions and

realistic colorful illustrations can easily be understood by the students. Picture

series make students easier to get the point of the material by the picture or

images in the narrative text. This media gives a chance for students to develop

their understanding by the image or picture.

In previous studies, Minarti (2008) found that picture series are effective media to

increase students reading achievement in comprehension. Because picture series

make the readers able to conclude the text from each paragraph by using the

picture. Besides, Fitriyaningsih (2013) believed that picture series can increase

one of reading comprehension aspects. She found most of the students had some

difficulties when they read the text.

 5

With reference to previous studies, it was assumed that picture series significantly

improve students' reading comprehension. Moreover, those previous studies did

not provide the students' responses towards picture series in reading aspects.

Therefore, the researcher would like to conduct the research which aimed to find

out whether or not picture series improve students’ reading comprehension in

narrative text, which aspects of reading improve the most after being taught by

using picture series, and also the students' responses toward reading

comprehension in the narrative text by using picture series the first-grade students

SMA N 3 Metro.

To this end, this research formulates identification of problem as they are

constructed below.

1.2. Identification of Problems

From the background above, this research indicates that there are several

problems related to the research.

1. The teaching learning process especially in the reading class activity did

not run well.

2. The teacher still used conventional strategy that makes reading activity

became passive and boring activity.

3. Reading is seen as a boring and difficult academic activity to do since they

do not understand the contents of the text.

4. Students avoided reading since they did not know an appropriate strategy

to comprehend the text.

5. Students had difficulties in understanding text since they faced problem

pertaining to vocabularies.
 6

1.3. Limitation of Problem

In relation to the identification of problems, the researcher limits the problem of

this research about an appropriate media, namely picture series to improve

students’ reading comprehension in narrative text.

1.4. Formulation of the Research Questions

In reference to the background of the problems mentioned previously, the

formulation of the problems can be cited as the following:

1. Can picture series improve students’ reading comprehension in the

narrative text?

2. Which aspect of reading comprehension in the narrative text does improve

the most in terms of macro skills after being taught by using picture series?

3. How are the students’ responses of reading comprehension in the narrative

text by using picture series?

1.5. Objectives of the Research

1. To find out whether or not picture series improve students’ reading

comprehension in the narrative text.

2. To find out the aspect of reading comprehension in the narrative text

improves the most in terms of macro skills after being taught by using

picture series.

3. To find out the students’ responses toward reading comprehension in the

narrative text by using picture series.

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1.6. Uses of the Research

Hopefully, this research will give positive contributions for the following points.

1. Theoretically, this research can be used as the reference for those who

want to conduct a research by using picture series and the result of this

research is expected to support the existing theory of reading strategy.

2. Practically, the result of this research hopefully can provide information

for the teachers on the use of picture series in teaching reading

comprehension, especially teaching reading for Senior High School.

1.7. Scope of the Research

This research was conducted at Senior High School 3 Metro. The subject of the

research was first grade students in 2017/2018 academic year. This subject was

chosen because according to the curriculum of SMA they had already studied

vocabulary, grammar, and some types of reading texts; i.e. descriptive text,

narrative text, and recount text. Particularly, narrative text was chosen as the

materials of this research related to the curriculum for Senior High School. The

research focused on the using of picture series for teaching reading narrative text,

in terms of macro skills consisting of (1) main idea, (2) specific information, (3)

inference, (4) reference and (5) vocabulary.

 8

1.8. Definition of Terms

In order to avoid misunderstanding some terms, the terms are used in this study

are cited as follows:

a. Reading is the ability to understand and comprehend the written texts, or

to read the texts to get information and to able answer the question from

the content of texts.

b. Reading comprehension is the process of extracting and constructing

meaning through interaction and involvement with written language that

include the aspects of reading.

c. Macro skills are big scope including some principles in mastering reading

to identify main idea, specific information, inference, reference, and

vocabulary , Brown (2004).

1. Main idea refers to important information that tells more about the

overall idea of a paragraph or section of a text.

2. Specific information denotes the fact and the ideas that explain or prove

the topic sentence or main idea.

3. Inference is concerned with an educational guess or prediction about

something unknown based on availabe facts and information.

4. Reference is words or phrase used either before or after the references

in reading material.

5. Vocabulary consists of parts of speech such as: nouns, verbs, adjectives,

and adverbs.
 9

d. Picture series are some pictures representing continuous events of a story

with improtant information. It is one of visual aids that is used by the

teacher in teaching and learning process.

e. Narrative text is a kind of text to retell the story based on the plot which

consists of event, person, and conflict. Event tells about what happens in

the story; person tells about the character that is involved in the story; and

conflict tells about the problem that needs to be resolved.

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CHAPTER II

LITERATURE REVIEW

This chapter discusses the theories used in the research, such as: review of

previous research, concept of reading skill, concept of reading comprehension,

aspects of reading skill, concept of macro and micro skills, concept of narrative

text, notion of teaching reading, intructional media, visual aids, picture series,

procedure of teaching reading through picture series, advantages and

disadvantages of teaching reading through picture series, theoretical assumption

and hypothesis.

2.1. Review of Previous Research

Under this topic, the discussion of studies investigated reading by using picture

series will be elaborated. These studies accordingly indicate kinds of problem

occurred in teaching reading skill at school.

First, Zainatuddar (2016) conducted a study which aimed to find out if there are

any significant differences in achievement between the students who are taught

speaking by using picture series and those who are taught by using drill technique

of the second year students at SMK N 1 Lhokseumawe. The data were collected

by using quantitative method. The result showed that the students who were

taught by using picture series got better result in speaking than those who were
 11

taught by using drill technique. Furthermore, the students were seen to be more

active and creative in expressing their ideas, and more confident in speaking

.
In the same way, Lestari (2014) conducted a classroom action research which

intended to improve the eight grade students’ listening comprehension

achievement by using picture series at SMP N 3 Lumajang in 2013/2014

academic year. In pre observation, she found that the students were not actively

involved in the teaching learning process of listening. The result showed that

picture series can improve the students’ listening comprehension achievement as

well as their participation. Therefore, the English teacher was suggested to use

picture series as the media in teaching listening comprehension.

Moreover, Yusnita (2013) conducted a research of the effectiveness picture series

in teaching writing recount text. Based on the writer experience during teaching,

the students were difficult to get ideas in recount text paragraph. The result had

shown that the students progress in writing scores were higher than the KKM

score. So, the use of picture series helped the students in improving writing

recount text.

With reference to those studies presented previously, there are differences

between this research and previous research. First, different language skill, those

previous studies focused on speaking, writing and listening, meanwhile this

research focused on reading skill. Second, the three previous studies used

quantitative research, which mean to find out the improvement students skills

after the treatment, meanwhile this research used quantitative and qualitative

method. This also means that, this research not only investigate the improvement

of reading skill but also to find out the students’ responses toward picture series in

teaching reading comprehension.

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2.2. Concept of Reading Skills

It is unquestionable that reading is one of important skills which needed by the

students from elementary school up to university. This is reasonable because

reading leads the students to gain a lot of information based on what they are

required in reading.

In terms of language skills, Dallman (1982:22) points out that reading is a verbal

process interrelated with thinking and with all other communication abilities such

as listening, speaking, and writing. Specifically, reading is a process in which the

reader makes sense of the written text in order to get information and knowledge

from the text. By reading, the reader will know what they read and challenged to

response the ideas of the author in order to make the messages or information that

comes from the author can be understood and comprehended easily by the reader.

Furthermore, according to Akyol (2006: 29), reading is a dynamic inferring

process that makes communication between writer and reader essential. This

means that reading is the ability to determine the gist of the information in the

whole texts or each paragraph.

Commonly, reading skill means students read texts they encounter in their daily

lives properly and fluently by using right methods (Ozbay, 2006:5). It means that

reading skill is the aptitude that people have in finding the meaning or the purpose

of the text they read without interruption. In addition, Suparman (2007: 13) states

that most important keywords in definition of reading are to take in, to

understand, to interpret, and to attribute an interpretation.

From those definitions above, it can be inferred that reading as one of complex

language skills; furthermore, it can also be assumed that in reading process the
 13

readers not only understand a set of words in the sentence but also be able to grasp

the message from graphic symbols. Thus, the reading is not merely a physical

process but also a mental process, because according to Vygotsky in Sutarsyah

(2013: 14) reading as the process of thinking and acquiring knowledge involves

automatic unconscious acquisition, followed by gradual increase in active

conscious control over that knowledge. Hence, reading usually also can be

defined as a metacognitive activity. This refers to methods used to help students

understand the way they learn.

2.3. Concept of Reading Comprehension

In reading process, the reader needs comprehension to get the points of the

reading text. In the other words, there is no reading without comprehension.

Cooper (1986:11) also states that comprehension is a process in which the reader

may construct meaning by interacting with the text. Furthermore, the message or

the meaning conveyed can be in the forms of information and knowledge. In

reading comprehension, a reader should have knowledge about understanding the

reading passage. The common questions on the passages are primarily about the

main ideas, details, and inferences that can be drawn from the passages.

In a like manner, Smith (1982:15) states that comprehension in reading as a matter

of “making sense” of text, of relating written language to what we know already

and to what we want to know. From these statements, it is clear that reading and

comprehension are regarded as one activity which cannot be separated. The goal

is to get some understanding of what the author is trying to suggest and make

conclusion of the text. Without comprehension, reading is nothing more than

tracking symbols on a page with your eyes and sounding them out.
 14

In addition, Caldwell (2008:4) states that reading comprehension is the process of

extracting and constructing meaning through interaction and involvement with

written language. This mean that the students should be able to analyze content

and infer the purpose of the text.

With reference to the explanations above, it can be said that reading

comprehension is an ability in which students make sense of the written text in

order to get information and knowledge from the text. Comprehension is not a

process that happens after reading. It is the thinking done before, during, and after

reading. The readers’ capabilities, abilities, knowledge, and experience impact the

act of reading.

2.4. Aspects of Reading Skill

Theoretically, Nutal (1985) points out that there are five aspects of reading that

should be mastered by the reader to comprehend the text deeply. These five

aspects are: (1) main idea, (2) specific information, (3) inference, (4) reference,

and (5) vocabulary. The following description illustrates those five reading

aspects.
MALIN KUNDANG

A long time ago on a small beach in Indonesia, lived a woman and her son,
who was called Malin Kundang. They did not have very much money, but Malin
Kundang was a healthy strong boy who was good boats man and swimmer.
One day, Malin Kundang saw a trader’s ship in trouble. It was being
raided by a small band of pirates. Malin Kundang went to help the ship and fought off
the pirates. The trader was very impressed by his strength and bravery. He asked
Malin Kundang to work with him and Malin Kundang agreed. Malin Kundang made
lots of money. He bought a huge ship of his own and married a beautiful wife.
Many years later, Malin Kundang’s ship landed on the small beach where he
grew up. People on the beach recognized him, and the news traveled around the
village. His mother, who had been sad and lonely without him, heard the news and
ran to the beach to meet her beloved son.
Malin Kundang, wearing his expensive clothes and standing with his
beautiful wife did not recognize his mother and refused to greet the poor old woman.
His mother begged him to see her three times, but he declined. His mother was angry.
She shouted that she would turn him into stone unless he apologized. Malin Kundang
laughed and started to sail away into the calm sea. Suddenly, a thunderstorm
 15

descended. Malin Kundang’s ship was tossed on the huge waves and sank. Malin
Kundang was thrown from the ship into a small island and turned into stone.
http://competition-storytelling.blogspot.co.id/2013/03/the-legend-ofmalin-
kundang.html

To be clearly, here is the analysis of those five reading aspects based on Malin

Kundang text:

1. Main Idea
Basically, main idea refers to important information that tells more about the

overall idea of a paragraph or section of a text. In line with Mc Whorter

(1986: 36) the sentence wwhich states main idea called topic sentence.

Specifically, it can be located 1) at the beginning, 2) in the middle or 3) at the

end of the paragraph. The example question of main idea can be “What is the

main idea of the last paragraph?”.

a) Here is an example of main idea placed at the beginning of the

paragraph.
A long time ago on a small beach in Indonesia, lived a woman and her
son, who was called Malin Kundang. They did not have very much money,
but Malin Kundang was a healthy strong boy who was good boats man
and swimmer.

The main idea of the paragraph is Malin Kundang lived with his

mother, because the whole paragraph tells about Malin Kundang and

her mother.

b) Here is the paragraph of Malin Kundang story which is main idea

placed in the middle of the paragraph.

One day, Malin Kundang saw a trader’s ship in trouble. It was being
raided by a small band of pirates. Malin Kundang went to help the ship
and fought off the pirates. The trader was very impressed by his strength
and bravery. He asked Malin Kundang to work with him and Malin
Kundang agreed. Malin Kundang made lots of money. He bought a huge
ship of his own and married a beautiful wife.

The main idea of the paragraph is Malin Kundang helped a trader’s

ship, because, the paragraph tells about the bravery of Malin

Kundang.
 16

c) Here is the paragraph of Malin Kundang story which is main idea

placed at the end.

Malin Kundang, wearing his expensive clothes and standing with his
beautiful wife did not recognize his mother and refused to greet the poor
old woman. His mother begged him to see her three times, but he
declined. His mother was angry. She shouted that she would turn him into
stone unless he apologized. Malin Kundang laughed and started to sail
away into the calm sea. Suddenly, a thunderstorm descended. Malin
Kundang’s ship was tossed on the huge waves and sank. Malin Kundang
was thrown from the ship into a small island and turned into stone.

It is now clear that the main idea of the paragraph is Malin Kundang

became a stone, because it tells that Malin Kundang did not recognize

his mother anymore.

2. Specific Information
According to Segretto (2002: 12), specific information or supporting details

provide the readers more information about main idea or subject of a main

idea of the passage. For example, the question of the text is about asking the

year, place, time, etc. As the example story below can used the question

“How did Malin Kundang become a rich man?”.

Here is the example text to find the specific information

One day, Malin Kundang saw a trader’s ship in trouble. It was being raided by a
small band of pirated. Malin Kundang went to help ship and fought off the
pirates. The trader was very impressed by his strength and bravery. He asked
malin kundang to work with him And Malin Kundang agreed. Malin Kundang
made lots of money. He bought a huge ship of his own and married a beautiful
wife.

As can be noticed that, the answer of the question is Malin Kundang met the

trader and worked with him then bought a huge ship of his own, because in

the second paragraph, there was a trader’s ship in trouble and malin helped

the ship. Shortly, the trader asked Malin to work him. It made Malin became

a rich man and bought huge ship. In this case, it gives the detail information

about the reason (cause and effect).

 17

3. Inference
Ordinarily, inference is about guessing something from the information which

have we read or know. Graesser & Wiemer Hastings (2001) states inference

is the output of the interaction between the readers knowledge and the

information in the text. The example of making inference is using the

question “The following statement is true, except....”

Here is the example strory to make inference.

Malin Kundang, wearing his expensive clothes and standing with his
beautiful wife did not recognize his mother and refused to greet the poor
old woman. His mother begged him to see her three times, but he declined.
His mother was angry. She shouted that she would turn him into stone
unless he apologized. Malin kundang laughed and started to sail away into
the calm sea. Suddenly, a thunderstorm descended. Malin Kundang’s ship
was tossed on the huge waves and sank. Malin Kundang was thrown from
the ship into a small island and turned into stone.

Obviously, the answer of the question is Malin Kundang’s ship landed on the

small beach where he grew up, because based on the text, there was no

statement of “Malin Kundang’s ship landed on the small beach where he

grew up”. That statement is in the third paragraph.

4. Reference

Naturally, reference is a relation between objects in which one object

designates, or acts as a means by which to connect or link to another object.

According to Reimer in (2009: 34) reference is a relation that obtains between

expressions and what speakers use expressions to talk about. The question of

the text is usually asks the reader to find the answer directly to the line in the

paragraph or the question is asked with “refer” word. For example, “The

word “he" in the sentence above refers to?”.

Here is the example story in determining reference:

Many years later, Malin Kundang’s ship landed on the small beach where he
grew up. People on the beach recognized him, and the news traveled around
the village. His mother, who had been sad and lonely without him, heard the
news and ran to the beach to meet her beloved son.
 18

Certainly, the answer is Malin Kundang.

The word “he” is called reference because it is pronoun to refer “Malin

Kundang”.

5. Vocabulary
In general, vocabulary is all the words which exist in a particular language or

subject. Harmer ( 2004: 153) states that the ability to determine the meaning

of vocabulary items from context is one of the most important aspects of

successful reading. Generally, vocabulary consist of content words and

functional words. This research will focus on the content words which

concern with nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs.

As can be seen that the text below consist of nouns, verbs, adjectives, and

adverbs. The reader will find certain parts of speech analyzed like the

following.

a. Nouns

According to Wren and Martin (1979:5), if a word gives a name to a

person, place, or thing the word is noun. Nouns can be divided into:

a) Collective noun, is the name of a number (or collection) of persons or

things taken together and spoken of as one whole. For example, army,

which is a collection of soldiers, and fleet, which is a collection of ships

or vessels.

In fact, there is no collective noun used in the text.

b) Abstract noun, is usually the name of a quality, action, or state

considered apart from the object to which it belongs.

For example, the underlined word in this sentence, “Malin

Kundang saw a trader’s ship in trouble” is an abstract noun.

Another classification of nouns is whether they are countable or

uncountable.
 19

a) Countable noun, is the name of objects, people, etc. that we can count.

For example, the underlined words in these sentences, Malin Kundang

bought a huge ship.

b) Uncountable noun is the name of things which we cannot count with

numbers.. For example, the underlined word in this sentence, “The

trader was impressed by his strength and bravery” is an uncountable

noun.

b. Verbs

Since this study concerns with narrative text which used past tense, the

verbs are focused on the regular verbs and irregular verbs. According to

Wren and Martin (1979:97), verbs can be divided into:

a) Regular verbs are those whose past tense and past participles are

formed by adding a -d or an -ed to the end of the verb.

For example, the word call become called as in this sentence, “ who

was called Malin Kundang”

b) Irregular verbs are the changed forms of these verbs are often

unrecognizably different from the originals. For example, the word go

become went as in this sentence, “Malin Kudang went to help the ship”

c. Adjectives

Wren and Martin (1976:19) said that a word used with a noun to describe

or point out, the person, animal, place or thing which the noun names, or to

tell the number or quantity, is called an adjective. Adjectives may be

divided into the following classes.

a) Adjective of quantity shows how much of a thing is meant as.

For example, lots in this sentence, “Malin Kundang made lots of

money” is the adjectives of quantity.

 20

b) Adjective of quality shows the kind or quality of a person

For example, beautiful as in this sentence, “ Malin Kundang married a

beautiful wife” is the adjective of quality.

c) Adjective of numeral, shows how many persons or things are meant

which is referred by a number.

For example, three as in this sentence, “ his mother begged him to see

her three times” is the adjectives of numeral.

d. Adverbs

Referring to Wren and Martin (1976:118), an adverb is a word which

modifies the meaning of a verb, an adjective or another adverb. Ordinarily,

it can be divided into:

a) Adverbs of time

For example, a long time ago as in this sentence, “ A long time ago on

a small beach in Indonesia” and many years later as in this sentence “

Many years later, Malin Kundang’s ship landed on small beach.”

b) Adverbs of place

For example, small beach in Indonesia as in this sentence, “ Malin

Kundang live in small beach in Indonesia.”

c) Adverbs of manner

The examples of adverb of manner are beautifully, quickly, and kindly.

In fact, there is no adverb of manner used in the text.

d) Adverbs of degree

For example, very as in this sentence “ they did not have very much

money”.
 21

2.5. Concept of Macro and Micro Skills of Reading Comprehension

Reading comprehension means the process of extracting and constructing

meaning involved in the text. It is needed a variety of intelectual skills to

comprehend the text. According to Troschitz (2005:4-6), the intellectual skills are

divided into two terms: micro and macro skill. Micro and macro skills have their

own implementation in reading activities.

1. Micro Skills
Here are crucial points of micro skills which should be implemented in reading

class, based on the selected text The Smartest Animal.

The Smartest Animal
Once upon a time, there was a farmer from Laos. Every morning and
every evening, he ploughed his field with his buffalo.
One day, a tiger saw the farmer and his buffalo working in the field.
The tiger was very surprised to see a big animal listening to the small animal.
The tiger wanted to know more about the big animal and the small animal.
After the man went home, the tiger spoke to the buffalo "you're so big
and strong. Why do you do everything the man tells you?" The buffalo answered
"oh, the man is very intelligent". The tiger asked, "can you tell me how
intelligent he is?" "No, I can't tell you," said the buffalo "but you can ask him".
The next day, the tiger asked to the man “can I see your intelligence?”
But the man answered “it is at home” “can you go and get it?” asked the tiger.
“Yes” said the man “but I am afraid you will kill my buffalo when I am gone”.
“Can I tie you to a tree?”. After the man tied the tiger to the tree, he did not go
home to get his intelligence. He took his plough and hit the tiger. Then he said
“Now you know about my intelligence even you haven’t seen it.
(http:// blogspot.co.id/2010/02/smartest-animal-example.html)

1. Discriminating among the distinctive graphemes of English. This belongs

to bottom up process. This is so because reading begins with letter and

their sound to get the meaning out. Grapheme is a letter or letter pattern

that spells a phoneme ( speech sound). English has a complex code in

which 1-4 letter graphemes can represent 1 sound. For example, 1 letter

grapheme: cat. The sounds /k/ is represented by the letter ‘c’. 2 letter

grapheme: leaf. The sound /ee/ is represented by the letters ‘e a’. 3 letter
 22

grapheme: night. The sound /ie/ is represented by the letters ‘i g h’. 4 letter

grapheme: through. The sound /oo/ is represented by the letters ‘o u g h’.

2. Retaining chunks of language of diference lengths in short-term memory.

In studies of language acquisition, chunks of language is several words

that are customarily used together in a fixed expression, such as "in my

opinion," "to make a long story short," "how are you?" or "know what I

mean?".

3. Recognizing a core of word, and interpreting word order patterns and their

significance. A core word is a set of words that a student is expected to be

able to read and spell. Examples of core word are big, blue, can, come,

down, find, for, funny, go, help, here, I, in, is, it, jump, little, make, etc.

4. Recognizing grammatical word classes (nouns, verbs, etc.), systems ( e.g.,

tense, agreement, and pluralization), patterns, rules, and elliptical forms.

For example, buffalo and tiger belongs to nouns.

5. Recognizing that are particular meaning may be expressed in diferrent

grammatical forms. For example, word forms child, children, childs’,

children's have the same lexical meaning and have different grammatical

meanings.

6. Recognizing cohesive in written discourse and their rule in signaling the

relationship between and among clauses. Here are of cohesive device in

pronouns, this, that, these, those, he, she, it, they, and we are useful

pronouns for referring back to something previously mentioned, for

example: When scientific experiments do not work out as expected, they

are often considered failures until some other scientist tries them again.
 23

2. Macro Skills
In addition, macro skills have some basic skills that should be implemented in

reading activities. To be clear, here is the application of basic skills in macro skills

according to The Smartest Animal text:

1. Recognizing the rhetorical forms of written discourse and their significance

for interpretation, e.g. there was a farmer from Laos. Every morning and

every evening, he ploughed his field with his buffalo ( line 1 and 2). Those

sentences are introductory paragraph which help the readers to define the

subject and to develop another paragraph.

2. Recognizing the communicative function of written text, according to form

and purpose. The form of the text is monologue text, especially narrative

text. Before the students read the text, they should have a purpose which

will help the students to get the answer (e.g. who are the characters in the

story?). So, the readers should find out the characters in the story.

3. Inferring context.

Inference is a good guess or conclusion drawn based on the logic of

passage. Finding inference means the reader imply the sentences or passages

understand and conclude it logically. For example:

1) The character of the farmer is smart person.

2) The end of the story is the farmer hit the tiger, the tiger died.

4. 1) Main Idea

Main idea is the most important piece of information the author wants to

know about the concept of a paragraph. For example:

a. Main idea in the first paragraph is farmer and buffalo routines in

every morning and evening.

 24

b. Main idea in the second paragraph is the tiger wanted to know more

about the buffalo and the farmer.

c. Main idea in the third paragraph is the tiger finds out what farmer’s

intelligence had.

d. Main idea in the fourth paragraph is the farmer hit the tiger.

2) Specific Information (cause and effect)

Cause is defined as why something happened. Effect is defined as what

happened. For example:

The tiger wanted to know about farmer’s intelligent (cause) and the farmer

hit the tiger (effect). So, the cause and effect is related each other.

5. Distinguishing between literal and implied meaning

1) Literal Meaning

The literal meaning of a sign is what it denotes. For example:

The tiger was very surprised to see a big animal listening to the small

animal. In this context, the small animal means the farmer.

2) Implied Meaning

While the implied meaning is what the sign connotes. For example:

The tiger was very surprised to see a big animal listening to the small

animal. In this context, the small animal can mean ant and fly.

6. Detecting references and interpreting them in context.

Reference is the intentional use of one thing to indicate something else in

which one provides the information necessary to interpret the other. Finding

reference means we interpret and determine one linguistic expression to

another. For example:

a. He ploughed his field with his buffalo. The word “he” on the sentence

refers to farmer.
 25

b. Why do "you do everything the man tells you?. The word “you” on the

sentence refer to buffalo.

c. Can you tell me how intelligent he is?. The word “he” on the sentence

refers to farmer

7. 1) Guessing Meaning of Word

Guessing meaning of the word refers to comprehend what the unfamiliar

words mean by seeing its synonym or antonym related to the context.

Besides that, we can also try to guess the meaning of word by

comprehending one or two previous sentences in the text. For example:

a) Synonym

a. Plough is synonym of hijack, because they belong to verb.

b. Surprise is synonym of startle, because they belong to noun.

c. Big is synonym of large, both belong to adjective.

b) Antonym

a. Big is antonym of small, because they belong to adjective.

b. More is antonym of little, both belong to adjective.

c. Strong is antonym of weak, both belong to adjective.

2) To interpret the elements of macro skills in the context, scanning is used

to find out the elements of macro skills in the text and to develop reading

comprehension.

Briefly, the research focuses on macro skills which is concerned mainly with

finding main idea, finding supporting detail or specific information, finding

inference meaning, finding reference respectively and guessing meaning of the

words ( understanding vocabulary).

 26

2.6. Narrative Text

According to the expert such as Bushel (2011: 10), a narrative paragraph

describes an event, feeling or experience in story form or in the order the details

of the event happened. While, according to Hudak (2008: 4) a narrative paragraph

is a group of sentence that tell what happens, how the action happens, and in what

order the events occur. Although narration usually refers to the telling of a story,

the term is used here to describe the relating of an experience.

There are many genres of narrative. Here are the examples of genre that fit the

narrative text structure:

1. Folktale is very old traditional story from particular place that is originally

passed on people spoken form, e.g. Malin Kundang, on page 14

2. Fairytale is an old story about magic things happened intended for

amusing and giving lessons, meanings, and moral values, e.g. Ali Baba

and Forty Thieves as presented on page 27

3. Fable is traditional short story that teaches moral lesson, especially one

with the animals as characters; these stories considered as one group of

animal stories, e.g. The Smartest Animal, as presented on page 21

4. Myth is a story from ancient times, especially one that is told to explain

about natural events or to describe the early history of place or people, e.g.

Tower of Babel, The Legend of Thor.

Usually, language feature of narrative text can be described as follows:

a. Focus on specific or individual participants, e.g. Ali Baba, Malin

Kundang.

b. The use of simple past, e.g. go - went, open – opened.

c. The use of temporal conjunction, e.g. when, then.

d. Adverb of time, e.g. Once upon a time, one day.

 27

In a like manner, narrative text also has generic structures as follows:

1. Orientation. This aspect is a set of the scene which introduces the

participants and informs the time and the place. In orientation, the narrator

tells about something that will begin a chain of events.

2. Complication. This tells the problems of the story and how the main

character solves them. In complication, the narrator describes the rising

crises which the participants have to do with.

3. Resolution. This element means that the crisis is resolved for the better or

worse. In resolution, the narrator shows the way of participant to solve the

crisis, better or worse.

Here is the example of Narrative Text:

ALI BABA AND FORTY THIEVES

Orientation: Once upon a time, there were 40 cruel thieves who put their stolen
money and treasures in a cave. They went in the cave by saying "Open Sesame" to
the cave entrance. A poor person, named Ali Baba saw them while they were doing
that, so he heard the opening word. After they left, he went toward the cave and
opened it. Suddenly, he found a very large quantity of money and golden treasures.
Then, He took some of it and went back home. After that, he became a rich man and
his brother wanted to know how he became rich.
Complication: One day, Ali Baba turned into the richest man in his village. His evil
brother was really jealous of him, and wanted to know how he could get such a lot
of money. Therefore, when Ali Baba went to the cave again to take some more
money, his brother followed him. He saw everything, and decided to go back the
next day to take some money for himself. The next morning he found a lot of money
in the cave, and he wanted to take all of them. Unfortunately, when he was busy
carrying the money to his house, the thieves came. The boss of the thieves asked him
how he knew about the cave. He told everything, but unluckily they killed him and
went to Ali Baba‟s house.
After finding Ali Baba’s house, they made a plan to kill him the following night.
Some of the thieves hid in big jars, and the boss pretended that he was a merchant
who wanted to sell the jars to Ali Baba. Ali Baba who was a kind man invited the
boss of the thief to have lunch together.
Resolution: After lunch, they took a rest. Luckily, the house maid went out of the
house, and found that there were thieves inside the jars. She finally boiled hot oil
and poured it into the jars to kill all of them. The boss of the thieves was caught, and
put into prison.
Re-orientation: Ali Baba was saved from the danger, and he finally lived happily
ever after with his maid who became his wife shortly after.
(http://www.english-for-students.com/ali-baba-and-40-thieves-1.html)

To be clear, below is the explanation of organization of Ali Baba and Forty

Thieves Story presented earlier, they are:

 28

1) Orientation is in the first paragraph because the narrator

introduces the characters and tells the events that will begin a chain

of events and these events will affects of the characters. The

characters are Ali Baba and 40 thieves.

2) Complication is in the second and third paragraphs because the

narrator tells the problem of the story. The problem is Ali Baba’s

brother was jealous of him and wanted to take his money. Then, the

boss of the thieves killed Ali Baba’s brother.

3) Resolution is in the fourth paragraph because the narrator shows

the way of the participant to solve the crisis, better or worse. The

solution from the character is Ali Baba’s housemaid poured hot oil

to kill all the thieves.

2.7. Notion of Teaching Reading

Naturally, a major goal of teaching reading is to help students develop

knowledges, skills, and experiences they must have if they are competent and

enthusiastic readers. For many years, teaching readings are based on a concept of

reading as the application of a set of isolated skills such as identifying words,

finding main ideas, identifying cause and effect relationships, comparing and

contrasting, and sequencing. Teaching reading comprehension is viewed as a

mastery of these skills. Hedge (2003) states that any reading component of an

English language course may include a set of learning goals for:

1. Developing the ability to read a wide range of text in English. This is the

long range goal most teachers seek to develop through independent readers

outside EFL/ESL classroom.

2. Building knowledge of language which will facilitate reading ability.

3. Building schematic knowledge.

 29

4. Developing the ability to adapt the reading style according to reading

purpose.

5. Developing an awareness of the structure of written text in English.

6. Taking a critical stance to the context of the text.

Alyousef (2005:143) suggests that “in teaching reading, contemporary reading

tasks; unlike the traditional materials, involve three-phase procedures: pre-, while,

and post-reading stages”. The pre-reading stages help to activate the relevant

schema. For example, the teacher can ask students questions that arouse their

interest while previewing the text. The aim of while-reading stages (or interactive

process) is to develop students’ ability in tackling texts by developing their

linguistic and schematic knowledge. For example, the teacher can encourage the

students to generate appropriate questions for the passage and to identify what

makes a text difficult and seek an understanding of difficult new vocabulary. Post-

reading includes activities which enhance learning comprehension using matching

exercise, close exercise, cut-up sentences, and comprehension questions or the

teacher can ask the student to identify and integrate the most important

information by using summarizing.

It is also said that the aim of teaching reading is to develop students’ skill that

they can read English text effectively and efficiently. In teaching reading, the

teacher should provide strategy to the students along with the purpose of reading.

The purpose of reading also determines the appropriate approach for reading

comprehension. For example, if their purpose of reading is to find the specific

information of the text, they should apply story grammar strategy in their reading.

Thus, it can be assumed that in teaching reading, appropriate and possible strategy

should be applied based on the purpose of reading in order to get the

comprehension. In this case, comprehension which aimed to get some

 30

understanding of what the author is trying to suggest and make conclusion of the

text.

In this research, picture series are proposed as the media because the images have

a function for describing the story to make the reader understand the story easily.

It will attract the students to be more interested with the text.

2.7.1. Teaching Reading in Terms of Macro Skills in Narrative Text

In accordance with English curriculum 2013 that has been applied in senior high

school in Indonesia, that is K13, the students are expected to comprehend the the

materials from various texts. One of them was narrative text. Why it is important

because the students have to have the ability to look at and get the meaning of

written text, that is called reading comprehension. Because of that, reading is very

important to be taught to the students.

Actually, teaching is the process to make students learn. Brown (1980: 7) states

that teaching is showing or helping someone to learn how to do something

providing with knowledge, causing to know or to understand. As we know that

one purpose of teaching is to make students learn. Equally, to make students learn,

reading narrative text, for instance, needs many supporting elements to motivate

and interest the students, one of those is media. Rather than leading students to

pure memorization or using media which is uninteresting, providing a rich

environment by using picture series as an alternative way for teaching reading is

desired. So, students are expected to be more interest to the lesson and more

active in learning process.

 31

2.7.2. Instructional Media

According to Van Els (1984: 46), instructional media are all aids which may be

used by teachers and learners to attain certain educational objectives.

Instructional media can be used in the teaching of English, because it can activate

and stimulate the students' interest in studying English, and make the acquisition

of the result of learning maximal. However, it must be remembered that in the use

of instructional media, it is important for the teacher to have certain ability and

skill to use media effectively and efficiently. Richards (in Kasbolah, 1993: 10)

defines the instructional media as the media which are use within the instructional

design and are determined by the requirements of the objective content and

instructional method. It means that instructional media is flexible and it can be

designed according to the situation and condition.

Furthermore, Gagne and Briggs (2008: 4) cited on Arsyad Azhar' book states that

media are device which are used to deliver content of the material which includes

some of books, recorder, video, film, photograph, pictures, television, computer.

In other words, media are components of learning resource or physical vehicle

which contain instructional material on the student environment which can

stimulate student to learn.

2.7.3. Visual Aids

According to Weaver (1950:5), visual aids are media that can be seen and used for

the learning. Visual aids also help the teacher in presenting the materials in the

classroom. Murica, as quoted by Minarti ( 2008:14), said that visual aids can be

categorized into three;

1. Plate materials, e.g. picture, flash card, maps, charts, cardboard figure.

2. Three dimension e,g. pupets, models, dioramas.

 32

3. Projected material, e,g. fil, filmstrips, motion picture.

According to the parragraph above, visual aids are everything that can be seen and

help the learning process. Picture series are visual aids that can help the students

in reading comprehension skill.

2.7.4. Picture Series

Picture is one of the visual aids that is used by the teacher in teaching and learning

process. According to Breitkreuz (1972) picture series are some pictures represent

continuous events of a story with important information. In addition, Wright

(1989) explains about the use of picture can be a good starting points to help the

students develop their reading skills. Huebener (1965) points out that if properly

used picture, maps, chart, maps, will certainly make the reading lesson more

interst, more collorful, more effective. The activities that the teacher can be

created with picture series are like:

1. Matching series of picture with paragraph they illustrated

2. Matching the picture that illustrated the main idea with the paragraph that

should be illustrated.

3. Arranging pictures in the other in which events ilustratred by them

occuired in a story.

4. Making up sentences that describe the picture.

The example of serial pictures as a media in teaching learning process of narrative

text is illustrated as seen below:

The Gingerbread Man

One day, the woman made a gingerbread man for dinner. She decorated
the gingerbread man with eyes made of currants and buttons made of cherries.
But when she took out gingerbread man from the oven, he jumped out and ran
away.
As soon as he was cooked, the little old woman opened the oven door.
The gingerbread man jumped out of the tin and ran out of the open window
shouting, 'Don't eat me!'. The little old woman and little old man ran after the
gingerbread man. 'Stop! Stop!' they yelled.The gingerbread man did not look
 33

back. He ran on saying, 'Run, run as fast as you can! You can't catch me, I'm
the gingerbread man!'.
Down the lane came to a pig. 'Stop! Stop! I would like to eat you,"
shouted the pig. The gingerbread man was too fast. He ran on saying "Run, run
as fast as you can. You can't catch me, I'm the gingerbread man.
A little further on he met a cow. 'Stop! Stop! little man,' called the
hungry cow, 'I want to eat you.' Again the gingerbread man was too fast. He
sped on down the road saying, "Run, run as fast as you can. You can't catch
me, I'm the gingerbread man."
It was not long before the gingerbread man came to a horse. 'Stop!
Stop!' shouted the horse. 'I want to eat you, little man.' But the gingerbread
man did not stop. He said,'Run, run as fast as you can. You can't catch me, I'm
the gingerbread man.' The gingerbread man laughed until he came to a river.
'Oh no! They will catch me. How can I cross the river?'.
A sly fox came out from behind a tree. 'I can help you cross the river,'
said the fox. 'Jump on to my tail and I will swim across.' The gingerbread man
climbed on the fox's tail. Soon the gingerbread man began to get wet. 'Climb
onto my back,' said the fox. So the gingerbread man did. As he swam the fox
said, 'You are too heavy, jump onto my nose.' So the gingerbread man did as he
was told. No sooner did gingerbread man sit on the fox’s nose, that the sly fox
tossed him and gobbled him up.

1. 2. 3.

4. 5. 6.
 34

7. 8. 9.

10. 11.

(Adapted from Kumpulan Dongeng Klasik Dunia, 2016)

That is the example of serial pictures and those pictures represent the story of The

Gingerbread Man. From the example, the teacher can ask the students to match

the picture with the story from each paragraph. The example is the students match

the picture with the text, explained below :

Choosed the right picture to match this paragraph!

One day, the woman made a gingerbread man for dinner. She decorated the
gingerbread man with eyes made of currants and buttons made of cherries. But
when she took out gingerbread man from the oven, he jumped out and ran away.

The answer is the picture below:

 35

In addition, Hibbing, as quoted by Nazrudin (2011:10), states that the

suplementation of text with visuals provides readers with two sources of

information from which draw upon when reading the material. It tells us that

reading combine with picture series help students to have a better understanding.

When the reader cannot comprehend a particular passage, then they may shift

their attention from the text to accompanying visual image.

There are criteria that should be considered by the teacher in selecting picture as

the media in teaching reading. According to Anitah (2008: 9-10) some criteria in

chosing picture as the media are citied below:

1. Suitable with age level of students and their ability.

2. The picture should be in simple form, not really complex.

3. Realistic, the picture should describe the story of the text.

4. The pictures must be in colorful form.

From the statement above, picture series are media that can be used in teaching

reading. Picture series are also the part of visual aids that can help the students in

learning process. The picture can be seen by the students clearly and distinctly.

The student can understand the content of the whole pictures because the first

picture is related to the second picture and so on.

2.8. Procedure Of Teaching Reading Through Picture Series

According to William as quoted by Minarti (2008:15) states that the procedure of

reading lesson starts with pre reading activity followed by a while-activity and

ending with post activity.

 36

1. Pre Activity
William (1986:37) states that the goals of the pre activities are to make the

students prior knowledge activity. Besides, this activity also builds the students

background knowledge. This activity also leads the students’ attention to the topic

of the reading. In general, reading activities that can be done in the class as

follows:

1. Teacher comes to the class and greats the students.

T : Good Morning Class, How are you today?
S: I am fine Miss, how are you today, Miss?
T: I am fine too, thank you. Before we start our lesson today, let’s pray
together.
2. After that the teacher explains about narrative text also its generic structure,
the teacher also asks the students the example of the story
T: Students, do you like to read a story? What Kind of story?
S : Yes Miss, I do. The stories that I like are short story, and novel, etc.
3. The teacher asks the students about the story that mostly they like. The
story such as tinker bell, tangled, or legend like danau toba and tangkuban
perahu.
T : Do you like other story like fabel, legend, or maybe myth?
S : Yes Miss, I do. I like the story such as fabel and legend.
T: So, tell me what is your favorite story?
S : My favorite stories are Tinkerbell and Tangkuban perahu
4. The teacher also develops the students background knowledge by asking
some questions that is related to the story.
T: So do you know what is our material today the material related to a
kind of story.
S : Yes, I do Miss, our material today is Narrative text, Miss
T: That is great!
 37

2. While Activity
According to William (1986:37) while reading activities draw on the text, rather

than the students’ ideas previous reading. The aims of this phase are to help

understanding the writer’s purpose to help understanding of the text content, and

to clarify the content. Those mean that the teacher explain about the content of the

material, such as the meaning of narrative text, the generic structure, and also the

function. This activities are just like the main point of the activities.

1. The teacher asks the students to make a group consist of 3 persons

T: Alright, now I would to ask you to make a group consist of 3 persons.
Let’s start
S: We are ready, Miss.
2. After that, the teacher gives the paper to each group and tells the material
in the class. The teacher explains about the generic structure, the aim, also
some kinds of narrative story
T: Alright students, now I will explain to all of you about our material
today. Now, let’s talk about narrativetext, generic structure, the aim of
the text, and also some kind of narrative text. After that, I will explain
about the characteristic of narrative text. So, what do you know about
Narrative text?
S : It is about story, Miss.
T : Anyone else? Is there any definitions about narrative text.
S : Narrative is a legend story, Miss.
T: Alright, those are a good answer, everybody. Narrative text is text that
tells past events and usually, the aim of the text is to entertain the
reader. Narrative use past tense, it also use the words such as finally,
long time ago, and etc. Narrative has three main generic structures.
The generic structures are: orientation, complication, and resolution.
3. After the teacher gives one story of narrative text with the pictures and
asks the students to read it one by one. The teacher gives some questions
which are related to the five aspects of reading comprehension.
 38

T: Alright, now please answer the following questions in your paper by

using picture series.
S: Alright, Miss.
4. After that, three groups ( can be more than three) presentate their stories in
front of the class.
T: Have you finished students?
S: Yes,I have Miss. I have finished my work.
T: now, each group please read your answer and story in front of the
class.
S: Yes, I do Miss.
5. After that, the teacher telss the answer of the questions by explaining the
material briefly
T: I will tell the answer and each group please listen to my answer and
explanation.
S: Yes, Miss.
6. The next step, the teacher asks the students to collect it.
T: Alright, now let’s collect it everybody
S: Yes I will Miss
7. The teacher gives 10 questions related to the story and asks the students
to answer it briefly.
T: Now, I will give you 10 questions that you should answer.
S: Alright, Miss. I will answer the 10 questions
8. The teacher asks the students to collect their works after that.
T: Please correct your work!
S: Yes, I will Miss.

From the statement above, in the while activities, the teacher gives the main

material using picture series media for the students. This activity also introduces

reading narrative text using picture series.

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3. Post Activity
At the end of the teaching and learning process, there are post activities. Post

activities are made to know the students understand the material or not. Before the

end of the class, the students are asked by the teacher to answer some question

related to the while activity. This activities are also good for the students because

the teacher asks the students whether there are a material that they did not

understand.

1. The teacher asks again about the material to make sure they understand the
material
T: Alright, let’s review our material. So, what is narrative text?
S: The text that tells past events miss.
T: Alright, that is true, and then please give an example of narrative text.
S: The legend of Prambanan Miss.
T: Is there anybody know about the function of narrative text?
S :Yes, I am Miss. The function of narrative text is to aim and entertain the
reader.
T :Alright ,Narrative text is a text which is related to a story and has a
aimed to entertain the reader. The story such as legend, myth, and
fable.
2. The teacher finishes the lesson and leaves the class
T : Alright, let’s close lour lesson today. Thank you for your attention and
good morning
S : Good morning Miss. Thank you very much.

From the statement above, post activity is the end of teaching process. The

activities are made to find out whether the students understand the material or not.

Before the end of the class, the students are asked by the teacher to answer some

questions related to the while activity

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2.9. Advantages and Disadvantages of Picture Series in Teaching Reading

There are some advantages of reading using serial pictures:

1. Capture the students’ interest

2. The students are able to study the materials effectively.

3. Picture helps the students to understand and to remember information

well.

4. Pictures are relatively cheap. It can be obtained almost anywhere and

everywhere.

5. By using picture, the students can see the object which are being talked

and discussed clearly.

6. Picture can present the world outside the class.

The disadvantages of using picture series in teaching reading comprehension are :

1. It is difficult to look for the specific pictures.

2. The students still find difficulty to express something happen in the picture

in detail if they have never seen it.

3. It does not contain full information

4. Each person has different perception about the meaning of picture.

Based on those advantages and disadvantages the researcher tries to take the

advantages and minimizes the occurrence of the disadvantages, so picture series

can be good media.

 41

2.10. Theoretical Assumption

In teaching reading, there are some media which are good to improve the students

reading skill, especially in reading comprehension. There are so many media that

the teacher can choose to help the students understand the material. The media

also can be implemented to get the aim of the lesson. If the teacher does not

choose the right technique and media, the teaching and learning process may be

will make the students fail to understand. Picture series can be a good media for

teaching reading narrative text.

Form picture series, the students can comprehend the texteasily. The teacher can

increase the students’ interest in reading. Picture series let the students focus on

the information that they will get from the text. According to Fitrianingsih (2013),

based on her research, picture series can help the students to increase their reading

comprehension ability. The aspect that is mostly increasedis inference. In

treatment activities, the researcher also found some students who cannot

understand the text. But when they had to make inferences based on the picture

they can tell some inferences relate to the pictures. Gambrell and Jawitz ( 1993)

and Liu (2004) have argued that visuals aids actually produce interference in

learning from a text for a variety of reasons, including text difficulties, readers’

abilities to process visual aids, an instruction on using pictures series.

Furthermore, picture series are believed by teacher which can be used as one of

the technique that can improve also help the students to comprehend the text.

Picture helps them as the visual aids that can be seen. Picture series will relate to

the passage, so, they will easily find the meaning of the text and the main point

that the text tells. Picture series may also improve the students reading

comprehension.
 42

2.11. Hypothesis

Concerning the theories and the assumption above, the hypothesis could

accoringly be formulated as follow:

H0 : There is no significant difference of students’ reading comprehension

before and after being taught by using picture series.

H1 : There is significant difference of students’ reading comprehension before

and after being taught by using picture series.

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CHAPTER III

RESEARCH METHODS

This chapter discusses some aspects and they are classified as the following:

research design, population and sample, data collecting technique, research

instrument, criteria of good test, scoring system, research procedure, data analysis,

data treatment, hypothesis testing, and schedule of the research.

3.1. Research Design

In conducting this research, a quantitative approach by applying One Group

Pretest-Posttest design was used . This design was used in this research because

the researcher only used one class as the experimental class which received

treatment of teaching reading using picture series. One group pretest-posttest

design is a research design where one group of participants is pretested on the

dependent variable and then post-tested after administering the treatment.

This research was conducted in five meetings: one meeting was used for

conducting pretest (T1) which was given prior to use picture series in order to

measure the students’ reading ability before they were given the treatment; three

meetings were intended for giving treatment (X) to teach reading by using picture

series in order to improve students’ reading compehension; whereas one meeting

was given for posttest (T2) after implementing picture series and to measure how

far the students’ improvement of reading ability after they got the treatments.
 44

The research design can be represented as follow:

T1 X T2
The formula can be further illustrated as seen below:

T refers to Pre-test

X deals with Treatment (using picture series)

T2 related to Post-test

(Hatch and Farhady as cited in Setiyadi, 2006: 131)

3.2. Population and Sample

It is widely known that a population can be defined as the whole subjects of the

research. In this study, the population was the first grade of SMA N 3 Metro. The

total number of the first grade students were 256 students. There were seven

classes of the first year students in semester two of 2017/2018 academic year;

each class consisted of 25-30 students. Specifically, in this research, the sample

was one class as experimental class selected by using Simple Random Sampling.

The class was X IPA 5. For this purpose, this type of sampling was applied based

on the consideration that students of the population have the same chance to be

choosen and in order to avoid the subjectivity in the research, which will ruin

validity of the results of this study.

3.3. Data Collecting Techniques

The technique in collecting data of this study was through administering several

tests including administering pretest, postest, and questionnaire. Next, an analysis

of the results of those activities are clarified by using the following procedures.
 45

1. Conducting Pretest

Pretest was conducted in order to find out the students’ reading comprehension

achievement before the treatment. This test was multiple choice form in which the

students were asked to choose one correct answer from the options a, b, c, or d. In

this test, the students were given the task from the result of try out test and it was

conducted within 60 minutes.

2. Conducting Posttest

After implementing the treatments, the posttest was administered in order to

measure students’ reading ability in comprehending text and also to find out the

effectiveness of picture series in teaching reading. The systematical design of

items were approximately same as pretest that consists of 30 items in multiple

choice forms covering (1) main idea questions, (2) specific information questions.

(3) reference and inference questions, and (4) vocabulary test. Time allocated for

the test was 60 minutes.

3. Questionnaire

It is not uncommon that questionnaire was distributed after posttest to see

students’ responses towards teaching reading narrative text by using picture

series. The closed ended questionnaire adopted from Jack C. Richards (2001: 224)

was used. This type of questionnaire leaded this study to find the important data

without manipulation. The questionnaire was developed based on some aspects;

mainly, they were:

1. Teacher’ Performances i.e., the way the teacher delivered the material.

2. Teaching Materials i.e., lesson material used by the teacher based on

curriculum.
 46

3. Teaching Learning Process i.e., the activities occured inside the class

during the learning process.

3.4. Research Instruments

Naturally, in order to gain the objective data, this research applies two kinds of

instrument, i.e. reading comprehension test and questionnaire. In this sub chapter,

those instruments will be explained. In addition, the criteria of the instruments

will be explained to find out whether the instrument is applicable or not.

3.4.1. Reading Comprehension Test

The instrument of this research was reading comprehension test. The reading test

of this observer was conducted to find out how far teaching reading

comprehension after given the treatment by using picture series. The test which

used in pre test was in the same form with the test which was used in try-out. But,

in the post test, the test was arranged. The test contained of five aspects of macro

skills, such as: main idea, specific information, inference, reference, and

vocabulary. The test was given in a form of multiple choice (a, b, c, and d).

Multiple choice test was used since its marking was rapid, simple and most

importantly reliable, that was, not subjective or influenced by marker judgments

(Heaton, 1975: 151). The multiple-choice format might make wh-questions easier

to answer than no-choice wh-questions because it gave the students some possible

answers. Students might be able to check the text to see if any of the choices were

specifically discussed, and then make a choice.

 47

The content of try out was presented in table of specification below:

Table 3.1. Specification of Try Out for The Reading Comprehension

No Reading Skill Item of Number Percentage

1 Determining main idea 2,8,17,23,26,30,32,40 20%

2 Finding specific 1,6,11,29,31,34,35,37 20%

information

3 Finding Inference 3,9,14,18,19,20,21,22 20%

4 Finding Reference 4,7,12,15,25,28,33,38 20%

5 Understanding Vocabulary 5,10,13,16,24,27,36,39 20%

Total 40 100%

3.4.2. Questionnaire

Questionnaire was distributed after posttest to see students’ responses towards

teaching reading narrative text by using picture series. The purpose of this

questionnaire was to assess whether or not the students give good responses

towards picture series media in reading narrative text.

3.5. Criteria of Good Test

It is commonly agreed that, a good test should have four criteria, such as good

validity, reliability, level of difficulty and discrimination power.

3.5.1 Validity

Principally, validity refers to the extent to which the test measures and to what is

intended to measure (Hatch and Farhady, 1982:250). This also means that it

relates directly to the purpose of the test. There are basically four types of

validity; namely: face validity, content validity, construct validity, and empirical
 48

validity or criterion-related validity. To measure whether the test had a good

validity, the researcher uses content validity and construct validity. Face validity

only concerns with the lay out of the test while the criterion-related validity is

concerned with measuring the success in the future, as in replacement test (Hatch

and Farhady, 1982). So these two validities are considered to be less needed.

Therefore, the two types of validity were used in this research, they were seen as

follows:

a. Content Validity

Content validity is intended to know whether the test items are good

reflection of what is covered or not. The test items which are adopted from

the materials that have been taught to the students should be constructed as

to contain a representative sample of the course (Heaton, 1988). To get the

content validity of reading comprehension, the observer try to arrange the

materials based on the standard competence in syllabus for first grade of

senior high school students. In order to establish the content validity of

measuring instrument, the observer identifying the overall content to be

represented. The validity of instruments is referred to the content and

constructs validity in which the question represents five sort reading skills,

i.e. determining main idea, finding the detail information, reference,

inference, and vocabulary (Nutal, 1982). All test items which has good

validity is used to collect the data for this research and the bad one should

be revised.

b. Construct Validity

Construct validity is about the instrument form. It investigates the research

instrument appropriateness to the research object. Construct validity is

concern with whether the test is actually in line with the theory of what

reading means to know the language (Hatch and Farhady, 1982). To know
 49

that the test is true reflection of the theory of language that is being

measured, it means that the items should really test the students whether

they have master the reading text. Related to this research, the test items

should be questioning the five aspect of reading. According to Nuttal’s

theory in which the construct validity in this instrument represented by five

sort reading skills: main idea, specific information, reference, inference, and

vocabulary.

3.5.2. Reliability

According to Hatch and Farhady (1982: 243), the reliability of a test can be

defined as the extent to which a test procedures consistent result when

administered under similar conditions. To measure the coefficient of the reliability

between odd (x) and even (y) of the test items, Pearson Product Moment formula

was used, is presented below:

This formula is described like the following:

rxy deals with the coefficient of reliability between odd and even number items

x relates to odd number

y denotes to even number

∑x2 deals with the total score of odd number items

∑y2 describes to the total score of even number items

∑xy refers to the total score of odd and even number

(Lado in Hughes, 1989)

 50

In order to know the coefficient correlation of whole items, Spearman Brown’s

Prophecy Formula (Hatch and Farhady, 1982: 247) is applied. The formula is as

follows:

The formula presented above is clarified as follows;

rk refers to the reliability of the whole class

rxy deals with the reliability of half class

(Hatch and Farhady, 1982 : 247)

The criteria of reliability is described below:

0.90-1.00 means that the reliability of test is high

0.50-0.89 indicates that the reliability of test is moderate

0.0-0.49 connotes that the reliability of test is low

3.5.3. Levels of Difficulties

The difficulty level of an item shows how easy or difficult that particular item

done by the participants, (Heaton, 1975:182). Level of difficulty is generally

expressed the percentage of the students who answered the item correctly. To find

out the level of difficulty of the test, the observer uses the following formula:

The formula can be illustrated as follows:

LD denotes to level of difficulties

U refers to the number upper group who answer correctly

L deals with the number of lower group who answer correctly

N relates to the total number of students in upper and lower groups

(Shohamy, 1985: 79)

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The criteria of levels of difficulties can be cited as follows:

< 0.30 explains that the level of difficulty of the test items is difficult

0.30-0.70 illustrates that the level of difficulty of the test items is average

> 0.70 means that that the level of difficulty of the test items is easy

3.5.4. Discriminating Power

Discriminating power is the ability of the item to discriminate between the

students whom had high ability and those whom had low ability.

In discriminating power, the formula is used is like the following:

It should clearly be noticed that:

DP relates to descrimination power

U deals with the number of students from the upper who answer correctly

L describes to the number of students from the lower who answer correctly

N refers to the total number of the students

(Shohamy, 1985: 82)

Furthermore, the criteria of discrimination power are like below:

0.00 – 0.20 means that discrimination power is poor

0.21 – 0.40 connotes that discrimination power is satisfactory

0.41 – 0.70 explains that discrimination power is good

0.70 – 1.00 describes that discrimination power is excellent

- (negative) shows that discrimination power is bad items (should be omitted)

 52

3.6. Scoring System

In order to get the students’ score, the researcher started from correcting

individual student’ answer sheet and giving score. The score standard used 0-100.

In scoring the students result of the pre-test and post-test, the formula by Lynman

as citied in Mutiah, 2013: 36)

X%C=100

The formula can be further illustrated as follows:

X%C deals with percentage of correct score

R refers to total of the right answer

T relates to the total of the number item

3.7. Research Procedures

In this sub chapter, the research procedure will be explained. There are two steps

in research procedure. They are planning and application.

3.7.1. Planning

Before doing the research, some plans are made in order to make the research run

well. The procedures of making plan can be seen as follows:

a. Pointing out the population and sample

The population and sample which are going to be part of the research were

chose.

b. Preparing the Tryout

The students were given a tryout test which consisted of 40 items in 40

minutes. This test was conducted to find out the level of difficulty,

validity, reliability, and also discriminating power.

 53

c. Preparing the pretest

This was a test which consisted of 30 multiples choice items in 60

minutes. This test was administered in order to check the students’ reading

ability before the treatment.

d. Preparing the lesson plan

The lesson plan were prepared for the research process. This was done to

find out the materials that are needed in teaching reading.

e. Determining the material to be taught

The material that would be taught, were determined. The material based

on the curriculum, for the first year in the second semester.

f. Preparing post test

After giving treatments, the post test was conducted in order to find out the

students’s improvement in reading comprehension after treatment. This

test consisted of 30 items of reading in 60 minutes

g. Preparing questionnaire

After conducting the posttest, the students were asked to fill in the

questionnaire. The questionnaire was aimed to find out the students’

responses towards picture series in reading comprehension.

3.7.2. Aplication

After making a plan, the researcher applied the research procedure as follows;

a. In the first meeting, the tryout test was given to students.

b. In the second meeting, the researcher conducted the pretest.

c. After the pretest, the researcher gave three times of treatments.

d. In the last meeting, the researcher conducted the post test and giving

questionnaire.
 54

In short, from the explanation above, there are two steps of research procedure in

this research, they are planning step to prepare the research and application step to

conduct the result.

3.8. Data Analysis

After the data had been collected by the researcher, she analyzed the data. The

students’ scores were computed in order to find out whether there is any

improvement of the students’ reading comprehension after being taught by using

picture series. The students’ scores were examined by using these following steps.

1. Scoring the pretest and posttest.

2. Tabulating the results of the test and calculating the score of the pretest

and posttest.

3. Interpreting the final result.

4. Drawing conclusion from the tabulated-result of the pretest and posttest

that was administered, that was by statistically analyzing the data using

statistical computerization.

5. Analyzing the result of questionnaire of each items then drawing

conclusion of students’ responses.

3.9. Data Treatment

In order to find out the improvement of the students’ reading comprehension after

being taught by using picture series, the data were analyzed by using the statical

computation repeated measured T-test using SPSS version 16.0.

According to Setiyadi (2006:168-169), using repeated measure T-test for the

hyphotesis testing had three basic assumption, namely :

1. The data is interval or ratio

2. The data is taken from random sample in population (not absolute)

 55

3. The data is distributed normally

To measure the aspect that mostly increased in students reading comprehension

aspect after being taught with picture series, the researcher used descriptive

analysis by using SPSS ver 16.0. The aspect that mostly increased can be seen

from the mean.

Normality test

This normality test was used to measure whether the data from the students score

were normally distributed or not. Here, the researcher used SPSS 16 to analyze

the data. So the hyphotesis for the normality test are as follow :

H0 refers the data is not distributed normally

H1 describes the data is distributed normally

While the criteria for the hypotesis is H1 accepted if sign significance >α with the

level of significance is 0.05.

3.10. Hypothesis Testing

After collecting the data, the researcher analyzed them to find out whether there is

improvement of the students’ reading comprehension after being taught through

picture series.

The criteria for accepting the hyphotesis are as follows :

1. H1 is accepted if the t- value is higher than T-table

There is a significant difference in reading comprehension after being

taught with picture series.

2. H0 is accepted if the t-value is lower than T-table

There is no significant differnence in reading comprehension after being

taught with picture series.

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3.11. Schedule of The Research

Below is the schedule of the research consisting of some activities illustrated as

follows:

Table 3.2. Schedule of Class Activities

No Date Acitivy

1. Monday, January 29th , 2018 Administering Tryout Test

2. Friday, February 2nd , 2018 Administering Pretest

3. Friday, February 9th , 2018 Giving Treatment 1by using lesson plan 1

4. Wednesday, February 14th , 2018 Giving Treatment 2 by using lesson plan 2

5. Wednesday, February 21st , 2018 Giving Treatment 3 by using lesson plan 3

6. Friday, February 23rd , 2018 Administering Posttest

7. Friday, February 23rd , 2018 Giving Questionnaire

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CHAPTER V

CONCLUSIONS AND SUGGESTIONS

This chapter presents conclusions that are based on the research’s result and

discussions in the previous chapter. It also presents some suggestions for English

teachers and other researchers who want to try to apply picture series as a media

in teaching reading.

5.1. Conclusions
In line with the results of the data analysis and discussion, the writer comes to this

following conclusion:

1. After the research has been conducted, it is concluded that picture series

are a good media for reading comprehension because it can help the

students to comprehend the text well. The increase can be seen from the

mean and also the gain in pre test and post test. In pre test, the mean of the

students score is 61.30 and in the post test is 81.60. And the gain is 20.30.

2. Evidently, all of the aspects in reading comprehension increased

significantly. To be more concrete, here are the results of reading aspects

achievement ranging from the highest to the lowest achievement.

2.1. Specific information improved 9.50 points, ranging from 17.67 to

27.17, because the picture series enabled the students to find out the

specific information which helped them to identify the main idea of

the text.
 82

2.2. Main idea improved 6.00 points, from 16.33 to 22.33, because the

student could identify the places of main ideas in the reading text.

2.3. Reference improved 5.66 points, from 20.17 to 25.83, because the

students could make relation between one object to another object in

the text.

2.4. Inference improved 5.50 points, from 21.00 to 26.50, because the

students could make relation between one object to another object in

the text.

2.5. Vocabulary improved 4.00 points, from 16.50 to 20.50. this increase is

not really high, because some of the students still got difficulties in

finding the meaning of some part of speech like verbs, nouns,

adjectives, and adverbs.

Briefly, it can be concluded that the aspect of reading comprehension that

improved the most after being taught by using picture series is specific

information.

3. The use of picture series as a media is proved to improve the students

reading comprehension. It can be proved from the result of the

questionnaire shows the students gave good response to the media.

5.2. Suggestions
Referring to the conclusion above, some suggestions can be listed as follows:

1. Suggestions to the teacher

a. As can be viewed that vocabulary aspect ranged the lowest achievement

in this study, then it requires strategies by teachers to improve this

aspect, for example, teachers can give more exercises about vocabulary

size such as matching words, antonym, and synonym.

 83

b. Besides vocabulary, aspect of reading needed to be increased was

inference. This is due to the fact that the increased was not really

significant. It suggests that the teacher can provide exercises, such as

creating crossword puzzle using the statements and the inferred

meaning as questions and answers

c. The picture that are going to use should be suitable with the students’

level. For example, the picture for elementary students related to animal

whereas for senior high school related to romance stories.

d. The teacher should effectively used the pictures in all stages of lesson

like pre-, while-, and post- activity, in order to obtain the advantages

from the pictures.

2. Suggestions to further researcher

a. This study was conducted in the Senior High School level. Therefore,

the further research can try to implement picture series in different level

of students like Junior High School. Also the teacher should add the

different type of questions such as why and how questions, because the

kind of questions let the students think critically.

b. In this research, the researcher applies picture series in teaching reading

narrative text at the first grade of Senior High School. Other researchers

can conduct other kinds of text, i.e recount, procedure, or the other text

which contain series of event.

c. There are some aspects in reading comprehension that can not be

increased significantly; reasonably it is suggested to the next researcher

to find out the reason and solve the problem.

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