THE IMPLEMENTATION OF RCRR (READ, COVER, REMEMBER,

RETELL) STRATEGY TO IMPROVE STUDENTS’ ACHIEVEMENT

IN READING COMPREHENSION

SKRIPSI

Submitted In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements

For the Degree of Sarjana Pendidikan (S.Pd)
English Education Program

By:

FATIN AMIRA
NPM. 1402050099

FACULTY OF TEACHER TRAINING AND EDUCATION

UNIVERSITY OF MUHAMMADIYAH SUMATERA UTARA
MEDAN
2018
 ABSTRACT

Amira, Fatin. 1402050099. “The Implementation of RCRR (Read, Cover,

Remember, Retell) Strategy to Improve Students’ Achievement in Reading
Comprehension”, Skripsi. English Education Department of Faculty of
Teacher Training and Education. University of Muhammadiyah Sumatera
Utara. Medan. 2018.

This study dealt with the implementation of RCRR (Read, Cover, Remember,
Retell) Strategy to improve students’ achievement in reading comprehension. It
aimed 1) to investigate the improvement on the students’ reading achievement by
appying RCRR (Read, Cover, Remember, Retell) Strategy 2) to describe the
students’ activities in reading comprehension through the implementation of
RCRR (Read, Cover, Remember, Retell) Strategy, and 3) to describe the teacher’s
performance in reading comprehension by applying RCRR (Read, Cover,
Remember, Retell) Strategy. This study was conducted by using Classroom
Action Research (CAR). Descriptive qualitative and quantitative design were
applied to do the research. The subject of this research was all students in X-IIK-1
that consisted of 34 students. There were two kinds of data collected in this
research, namely quatitative and qualitative data. The quantitative data were
taken from the students’ scores on reading comprehension, while the qualitative
ones obtained from the observation of students’ activity and teacher’s
performance in learning process. Those data were analyzed quantitatively and
qualitatively. The research findings showed that there was an improvement of
students’ scores after appying RCRR Strategy; In Pre-test, the students’ average
score was 50.58 (no one got score more than 80), in Cycle I, the students’ average
score was 75.29 (18 people got score more than 80) and in Cycle II the students’
average score was 87.05 (34 students got score more than 80). It meant that there
was improvement from Cycle I to Cycle II at 47.06%. It was also found that the
students’ activities and teacher’s performance increased;the average percentage of
students’ activity in the learning process was 58.46% in the first cycle and
increased to 80% in the second. While, the teacher’s activity in learning had
improved well with the average percentage of 52.20% in the first cycle and
75.11% in second cycle. Based on the results from quantitative and qualitative
data analysis proved that RCRR (Read, Cover, Remember, Retell) Strategy
improved the students’ achievement in reading comprehension.

Keywords:Read Cover Remember Retell Strategy, reading comprehension,

students’ achievement.

i
 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

In the name of Allah the Most Gracious and the Most Merciful. Firstly, the

researcher would like to deliver her thanks to Allah SWT, who has blessed her to

write this research. Secondly, blessing and peace be upon the Prophet Muhammad

SAW, who has brought human being from the darkness to the light era. Thirdly,

the researcher would like to thank to her beloved parents, Mr. Arifin and Mrs.

Sabaiyah, who always pray for her, million words would never be enough to

endless love, care, attention, encouragement and heart they have given. Her love

is very much to her parents.

The purpose of writing this research entitled: The Implementation of

RCRR (Read, Cover, Remember, Retell) Strategy to Improve Students’

Achievement in Reading Comprehension as partial fulfillment of the requirements

for the degree of Sarjana Pendidikan. Furthermore, the researcher would like to

thanks many people who gave the support and suggestion in finishing the

research, they are:

1. Dr. Agussani, M.AP., as the Rector of University of Muhammadiyah

Sumatera Utara.

2. Dr. Elfrianto Nasution, S.Pd., M.Pd, the Dean of FKIP UMSU who had

given her recommendation to carry out this research.

3. Mandra Saragih, S.Pd., M.Hum, the Head of English Education

Department and Pirman Ginting, S.Pd., M. Hum, the Secretary of English

ii
 Education Department of FKIP UMSU, who have allowed and guided the

researcher to carry out the research.

4. Yenni Hasnah, S.Pd., M.Hum, as her supervisor who had given her a lot of

valuable suggestion, ideas, and guidance to complete this research.

5. All lecturers who have given their valuable thoughts in teaching her during

her academic years at UMSU.

6. Maisaroh, S.Pd., M.Si, as the Headmaster of Man 1 Medan.

7. Her beloved friends, Nur Qomariah, Ayu Kumala Dewi, Firdha Khairani

Siregar, Gita Sahfitri, Yeni Apriani, Mhd Hafiz Yazid Surbakti, Fachry

Riza Hidayat, Nurul Fadila, and all her friends in real teaching practice at

Man 1 Medan who console her in happiness and sadness and give her

support and motivation.

8. All friends in B Morning class, for the support to finish her study.

Finally, the researcher hoped that her study will be useful for the readers,

especially for the students of English Education Program who want to do a

research and also for the researcher herself. May Allah, the most Almighty bless

all of us.

Medan, 02 Maret 2018

Fatin Amira
1402050099

iii
 TABLE OF CONTENTS

ABSTRACT ............................................................................................... i

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ....................................................................... ii

TABLE OF CONTENTS ........................................................................... iv

LIST OF TABLES ..................................................................................... vii

LIST OF APPENDICES ........................................................................... viii

CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION ............................................................. 1

A. The Background of the Study ................................................................ 1

B. The Identification of the Problem .......................................................... 5

C. The Scope and Limitation ..................................................................... 5

D. The Formulation of the Study ............................................................... 5

E. The Objective of the Study .................................................................... 6

F. The Significance of the Study ............................................................... 6

CHAPTER II REVIEW OF LITERATURE .......................................... 8

A. Theoretical Framework .......................................................................... 8

1. Reading Comprehension ..................................................................... 8

1.1 Levels of Reading Comprehension ................................................ 10

1.2 Reading Comprehension Strategies .............................................. 11

1.3 The Processes of Reading Comprehension .................................... 16

1.4 Factors Affecting Reading Comprehension .................................. 17

1.5 Teaching Reading Comprehension ................................................ 19

iv
 1.6 Problems of Teaching Reading Comprehension ............................ 19

2. Narrative Text .................................................................................... 21

3. Read, Cover, Remember, Retell (RCRR) Strategy .............................. 22

4. The Implementation of Read, Cover, Remember, Retell Strategy

(RCRR) in Teaching Reading Narrative Text ..................................... 24

B. Previous Relevant Study ......................................................................... 26

C. Conceptual Framework .......................................................................... 28

CHAPTER III METHOD OF RESEARCH ........................................... 30

A. Research Design ................................................................................... 30

B. Subject of Research .............................................................................. 31

C. Instrument of Research .......................................................................... 32

D. Procedure of Research .......................................................................... 33

E. Technique of Analyzing Data ................................................................ 35

F. Success Indicator .................................................................................. 37

CHAPTER IV DATA AND DATA ANALYSIS ..................................... 38

A. Data ...................................................................................................... 38

B. Data Analysis ........................................................................................ 38

4.1 Cycle I ........................................................................................... 38

4.2 Cycle II .......................................................................................... 43

C. Research Findings and Discussion ........................................................ 47

v
CHAPTER V CONCLUSION AND SUGGESTION .............................. 49

A. Conclusion............................................................................................. 49

B. Suggestion ............................................................................................. 50

REFERENCES

APPENDICES

vi
 LIST OF TABLES

Table 3.2 Criteria of Success Level of Students’ Learning in Percent ............. 35

Table 3.3 The Criteria of Students Activities in Learning ................................ 36

Table 3.4 The Category of Teachers’ Performance ......................................... 37

Table 4.1 The Percentage of Students’ Activity in Cycle I .............................. 39

Table 4.2 The Percentage of Teachers’ Performance in Cycle I ...................... 40

Table 4.3 The percentage of Students’ Activity in Cycle II ............................ 43

Table 4.4 The Percentage of Teachers’ Performance in Cycle II .................... 44

vii
 LIST OF APPENDICES

Appendix 1 Lesson Plan Cycle I

Appendix 2 Lesson Plan Cycle II

Appendix 3 Reading Test in Pre-Test

Appendix 4 Reading Test in Cycle I

Appendix 5 Reading Test in Cycle II

Appendix 6 Key Answer

Appendix 7 The Result of Students’ Score in Pre-test, Cycle I and Cycle II

Appendix 8 Students’ Answer Sheet

Appendix 9 Students’s Activities in Cycle I

Appendix 10 Students’s Activities in Cycle II

Appendix 11 Teachers’ Performance in Cycle I

Appendix 12 Teachers’ Performance in Cycle II

Appendix 13 Students Attendance

Appendix 14 Documentation

Appendix 15 Form K-1

Appendix 16 Form K-2

Appendix 17 Form K-3

Appendix 18 Lembar Pengesahan Hasil Seminar Proposal

Appendix 19 Surat Pernyataan Plagiat

Appendix 20 Surat Permohonan Izin Riset

Appendix 21 Surat Keterangan Izin Riset

viii
Appendix 22 Berita Acara Bimbingan Skripsi

Appendix 23 Curriculum Vitae

ix
 1

CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

A. The Background of the Study

Reading comprehension is the activity of reading in which the readers

build comprehension of a text. Reading comprehension combined logical thinking

that is owned by a collection of letters, words, and sentences that are in the text.

This is in line with the statement of Snow (2002) which states that reading

comprehension is the process of simultaneously extracting and constructing

meaning through interaction and involvement with written language. The above

statement emphasizes that reading comprehension is not just about how you read

well that includes accurate pronunciation and loud voice. However, reading

comprehension is an activity to extracting and constructing an understanding of

the meaning of a text which can then be translated by you and through your own

language. Furthermore, such understanding can be useful to others. Without

reading comprehension, students can only imitate a person's language and read a

text without understanding the meaning. Through reading comprehension

someone can get more information, knowledge, enjoyment and even problem

solution. So, reading comprehension was very important for the students to have

in understanding the written language well.

Reading is one skill involved in english curriculum which must be

mastered by the students. The competency standard of reading for Senior High

School of curriculum 2013 expects that the students are able to comprehend the

1
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short functional texts such as recount, narrative, descriptive, analytical exposition

and procedure text in the daily context. It means the students were expected to

comprehend the text, includes the definition, the generic structures and the

language feature from those text.

In reality, there were many students still have low ability in reading

comprehension. For example, most of the students did not understand about the

definition, the generic structures and the language feature in a narrative text. This

reality was stated by Aruan and Vera (2012) in the results of their research based

on initial observations made, the low ability of students to read is because they are

less able to understand the text. So they unable to answer questions related to the

text. Another fact that proves reading ability of Senior High School is low through

the research done by Programme for International Student Assesment (PISA,

2015). Based on a survey of reading literacy in Senior High School age students

(15-16 years), it was reported that Indonesia is ranked 62 out of 70 participating

countries. These realities of students’ reading ability showed that the students’

ability of senior high school in reading comprehension was still low.

This reality was also found by the researcher in Real Teaching Practice

(PPL) at MAN 1 Medan in 2017/2018, the researcher found some problems of the

students in reading comprehension. The first, students have low vocabulary. They

just read without knowing the meaning. It makes the students got difficulty to

comprehend the main idea of the text. Then, the students were lazy to open their

dictionary to find the meaning of the word. Second, the students think that reading

was a boring thing, because of reading a longer text. When the teacher asked the
 3

students to answer some questions based on the text orally, most of them could

not give the correct answers. The condition indicated that the students have low

proficiency in understanding a text.

There were some factors cause the problems of reading. The first was the

internal factor, come from the students them selves. The students have low

motivation and interest in reading. It was indicated when they were asked to read

a text, they were still lazy and passed by their eyes without comprehending the

text. The second was the external factor that may come from the teacher. They

still use conventional strategy to teach their students in the class. In this case the

teacher only give the reading text and then asked the students to read the reading

text and answer the questions. It makes the students less encouragement and

motivation in reading a text. On the other hand, the students seldom discuss and

share the materials they get toward others , the students become passive because

the reading activity still depends on the teacher’s explanation.

The problems of students in reading can be solved through the application

of various kinds of reading strategies. The problems can be solved through the

learning process undertaken by the teacher, one of them is by using appropriate

teaching strategies. There are many teaching reading strategies need to be used to

make the students active in doing reading comprehension activity and it needs an

appropriate strategy to help them to solve the students problems. One of them is

Read, Cover, Remember, Retell strategy. According to Brummer and Macceca

(2008) state that Read, Cover, Remember, Retell strategy is an effective approach

to helps readers at all grade levels who think that good reading is reading quickly
 4

and as the result do not understand what they have read. It is modeled for students

during a whole-class instruction period, and then conducted with the students who

work as partners to read the same text. By using this reading strategy the students

had an opportunity for giving mutual support and stimulation and the students are

also motivated to share the information or express their story each other. It means

reading with this strategy students will be able to read quickly followed by good

results from an understanding of what they have read. Then, reading

comprehension by using this strategy is believed to improve students' reading

ability. This is supported by the research finding of Yulimariza (2013) states that

Read, Cover, Remember, Retell strategy can increase students' motivation in

learning English, especially reading and it can make them think more active and

critical in understanding the text. And then, Anita (2013) concludes that this

strategy also can improve students reading comprehension. It is known that using

read, cover, remember, retell strategy toward students’ reading comprehension

give good effect. So, it was believed that this strategy is more effective to make

students can understand and remember what they read in the text.

Based on the description above, the researcher was interested in

conducting the research entitles : The Implementation of RCRR (Read, Cover,

Remember, Retell) Strategy to Improve Students’ Achievement in Reading

Comprehension. In this research, the researcher would like to describe the

students’ achievement in reading comprehension through the implementation of

Read, Cover, Remember, Retell (RCRR) strategy.

 5

B. The Identification of the Problem

Based on the background above, the problems were formulated as follows:

1. The students still got difficulty to comprehend the main idea of the text.

2. The students have low motivation in reading.

3. The students have low vocabulary.

4. The teacher still used conventional strategy to teach the students.

C. The Scope and Limitation

The scope of this reseach focused on reading comprehension on narrative

text and it was limited on interpretative reading comprehension of the first grade

students of senior high school.

D. The Formulation of the Problems

The problems of this research were formulated as the following:

1. Is there any improvement of students’ achievement in reading comprehension

by applying RCRR (Read, Cover, Remember, Retell) strategy?

2. How are the students’ activities in reading comprehension through

implementing of RCRR (Read, Cover, Remember, Retell) strategy?

3. How is the teacher’s performance in reading comprehension through the

implementing of RCRR (Read, Cover, Remember, Retell) strategy?

 6

E. The Objective of the Study

Based on the problem above, the objectives of the research were as

follows:

1. To investigate whether the RCRR (Read, Cover, Remember, Retell) strategy

improving students’ achievement in reading comprehension.

2. To describe students’ achievement in reading comprehension through the

implementation of Read, Cover, Remember, Retell (RCRR) strategy.

3. To describe the teaacher’s performance in reading comprehension through the

implementation of Read, Cover, Remember, Retell (RCRR) strategy.

F. The Significant of the Study

The findings of this research were expected to be useful theoretically and

practically.

1. Theoretically

Theoretically the result of this research was useful to increase the readers

knowledge about reading comprehension strategies especially the use of RCRR

(Read, Cover, Remember, Retell) strategy.

2. Practically

a. The students, the result of this study can make the students easier to

understand the text they have read.

 7

b. English teacher, as an alternative strategy in teaching reading

comprehension. So that reading is not boring and not just based on the

teacher explanation.

c. The researcher, can then apply this strategy when the researcher taught

reading comprehension. For other researchers, for its application the

results of this research will later be further developed to other kinds of

text.
 8

CHAPTER II

REVIEW OF LITERATURE

A. Theoretical Framework

1. Reading Comprehension

The concept of reading comprehension is a never-ended concept to be

discussed. People try to give limitation or determine the meaning in order to make

a clearer definition and understanding of reading comprehension. There are so

many definitions of reading comprehension available. According to Snow (2002)

that reading comprehension is the process of simultaneously extracting and

constructing meaning through interaction and involvement with written language.

The two keywords here are the process of extracting and constructing meanings.

If no meaning is extracted, then no meaningful acquisition will occur. To do this

practice, how readers are able to understand through processing the meaning of

what they read will depend on how they can perceive as well as to make sense

words, sentences, or even a connected text in their mind or thought. This process

will require the readers to use of background knowledge, vocabulary, grammatical

knowledge, experience of the readers to help them in comprehending the written

text.

In comprehending the written text, the readers should be more active.

Wallace in Carter and Nunan (2001) explains that reading comprehension is an

active process rather than passive one. Thus, the reader was typically described as

'extracting' meaning from a text. More recently the ground has shifted again to

8
 9

talk of reading as 'interactive' rather than simply 'active'. Readers are seen as

negotiating meaning; meaning is partial within the text and writers' intentions may

not be privileged over readers' interpretations. The term interactive refers to the

situation of two ways communication. The readers and the writer actually are

doing an indirect communication in which readers try to get the meaning of what

the writer want to communicate by their writing.

Along with Klingner and Vaughn (2007) state that reading comprehension

is a multi-component, highly complex process that involves many interactions

between readers and what they bring to the text (previous knowledge, strategy

use) as well as variables related to the text itself (interest in text, understanding of

the text types). It refers that reading comprehension involves much more than

readers’ responses to the text and the readers knows which skills and strategies are

appropriate for the type of text, and understands how to apply them to accomplish

the reading purpose.

Based on some definitions of reading comprehension described above, it

stated that reading comprehension is the process of extracting and constructing

meaning between the readers and the written language. Because the readers

should be extracting the meaning of the text to get the point. So, it was concluded

that reading is one of the important language skills to be mastered. It is skill that

bridges readers to meaning of texts. Through reading a text, people can enlarge

their knowledge. Everybody needs to read in order to improve their knowledge

and to gather any information after reading a text.

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1.1 Levels of Reading Comprehension

Level of comprehension refers to the degree in which a reader can be

categories as good or poor reader, proficiency reader. It means that how far the

students understand information gotten from the text and which levels that has

been achieve. According to Brown (2004) that there are four levels of

comprehension, there are literal comprehension, interpretative comprehension,

critical comprehension, and creative comprehension.

a. Literal Comprehension

Literal comprehension included the process to take in ideas or

understanding the ideas and information explicity in the passage. The basic of

literal comprehension is recognizing stated main ideas, details, caused, effect and

sequence. Mastering of the basic literal comprehension can be done through

understanding the vocabulary, sentence meaning and paragraph meaning. The

literal level is easiest level of reading comprehension because a readers is not

required to go beyond what is actually said. In this level, the reader knowns the

words meaning or to recall detail directly in own word.

b. Interpretative Comprehension

Interpretative comprehension refers to the ability to go beyond what is

stated directly, to understand what the researcher means by looking for the inside

meaning. Readers identify and derive ideas and meaning from a text they are

explicitly stated. It can be said that interpretative comprehension the ability to get
 11

inference or implied meaning from the text, understand of ideas and information

not explicitly stated in passage.

c. Critical Comprehension

The critical comprehension is the ability to make analysis, evaluation and

personally reacting about the ideas of information the researcher offers in a

passage. The critical comprehension must be active reader, questioning, searching

for fact, and suspending judgement until students considered all of the materials.

d. Creative Comprehension

Creative comprehension refers to the ability of the reader to use his/her

imagination when reading the passage. Skill for creative reading comprehension

includes the understanding cause-effect relationship on a story solving problem

and producting the creation.

So, from the explanation above it was concluded that all four levels of

reading comprehension are important and need to be foster for the readers. All the

levels of comprehension are important, but in this research the researcher only

focus on the one level namely interpretative comprehension.

1.2 Reading Comprehension Strategies

Strategies are ways for learners to solve problems encountered in

constructing meaning in any context. The use of strategies in reading requires the

reader to think about how to approach the text in order to decode and retain

information (Roe & Ross,2006). The strategies used by the students must be
 12

different from one another. Related to achieving reading comprehension, there are

some strategies that may be useful. Brown (2007) suggests ten strategies for the

reading comprehension that can be applied in the classroom as stated below:

1) Identifying the purpose in reading

Readers have their own purposes why they are willing to read. They want

to achieve something or they want to pursue their goal by reading. Students are

the same. They also have their own goal and want to get something by reading.

Therefore, teachers should be able to guide their students to understand the

purpose of their reading. Activities and materials given to the students should be

able to represent the purpose of their reading because reading activities and

materials will be more meaningful if they know the reason why they are asked to

read.

2) Using graphemic rules and patterns

In reading, readers will try to make an association between the

phonological aspects and the written form in order to know well the content of a

text. They tend to use their linguistic knowledge, for example: sounds and lexical

words, rather than their knowledge of the world to help them understand the

meaning of a sentence or a paragraph. This tendency also happens to students.

They often argue that they do not want to read or they are not willing to read

because they do not understand what is meant by the words, how to pronounce the

words and so forth. It is concluded that they tend to use their linguistic knowledge

first when they are asked to read. Therefore, teachers should be able to make the

reading activities that involve graphemic rules.

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3) Using sufficient silent reading technique

Silent reading techniques can be used for enhancing and improving

reader’s comprehension ability. As what have previously been discussed, the main

goal of the reading activities is to make them understand the content or the

message conveyed in a text. As long as they can understand the content, it is not

necessary for them to understand the meaning of each word. That is the essence of

silent reading techniques that can help the readers understand the content, not

lexical words presented in the text. Therefore, teachers should be able to guide

their students to effectively use silent reading techniques to understand or

comprehend a text as a whole in the teaching and learning process.

4) Skimming

Skimming is one of the strategies that can be used to enhance

readers’comprehension ability. Skimming is a strategy used in reading in which

the readers’ task is to predict and to find any important information from a text

that can help them understand the text before they read the text deeper. Related to

the teaching reading, by using this strategy, it is expected that teachers can make

the use of the schemata theory to help their students comprehend the given text.

They may start focusing the students’ attention on the title of the text and asking

them to predict the content from its title before they go further reading the text.

5) Scanning

Readers can comprehend the content of a text through scanning. Scanning

is a strategy to find specific information. By knowing any specific information

needed, the readers can construct their understanding. By applying this strategy,
 14

they do not need to read the whole text in order to comprehend and catch the

message conveyed in the text.

6) Using semantic mapping

Semantic mapping or clustering is a strategy used by readers in which they

break a big idea of a text into smaller groups of ideas. This strategy is expected to

help them understand the content of a certain text by identifying, analyzing, and

comprehending each smaller group of ideas before they come to a conclusion by

connecting their understanding of each group of ideas. By applying this, teachers

guide their students to make an association between a certain topic of a text and

their knowledge that they already have in their mind.

7) Guessing

In dealing with difficult words, readers tend to look up the words in their

dictionary. Nevertheless, depending too much on dictionary does not guarantee

that they comprehend well a certain text since they only know the meaning in the

words level. Moreover, looking up the difficult words in the dictionary takes time.

Therefore, teachers should be able to guide their students through whatever clues

presented in the text that can be used to guess the meaning of words and the

content of the text. The students may look at language-based clues such as word

analysis and word associations or even non-linguistic clues such as the context,

the given situations, and the background knowledge that they already have.

8) Analyzing vocabulary

Having good vocabulary mastery is important. It is easier for readers to

comprehend the content of a text if they know meanings of each word used in the
 15

text. Because it seems impossible to know all meanings of all words, guessing the

meaning of each word can be applied through analyzing the word. In a classroom

teaching and learning process, students should be guided to break a word into its

smallest unit. By looking at the morpheme of a word, grammatical context or any

possible association of the vocabulary with the context of the text, they are

expected to be able to understand the vocabulary.

9) Distinguishing between literal and implied meaning

This strategy needs a higher reading skill because sometimes a sentence

cannot be interpreted as what it is written. Sometimes, the meaning of a sentence

is in the form of an implication in which it has implied meanings. It is because a

sentence may have semantic information and pragmatic information. Therefore,

readers should analyze beyond the literal form in order to get the meaning of the

sentence. To help students distinguish between literal and implied meanings,

knowing the context or situation presented in the text is important. By knowing

the context of what is being discussed in the text, it will be easier for them to

generate the literal and implied meanings.

10) Capitalizing on discourse markers to process relationships

Discourse markers can be simply defined as a set of words that can be

used as signals that can help readers draw a relationship among words or

sentences. By helping students understand and be familiar with various discourse

markers with their own characteristics, their reading comprehension ability can be

improved.
 16

The ten reading comprehension strategies above was considered by

teachers when teaching reading classes. The teachers may decide whether they

want to use all strategies or to pick only some strategies. Using and choosing the

strategies to be applied is based on teachers’ personal judgment because the

situation and condition in one field are different from another.

1.3 The Processes of Reading Comprehension

Formerly stated, reading is a process of decoding text, and then receiving

information. From this, it can be seen that reading activity involves more than one

process. The reading process itself still involves other language processes like

listening and reading (receptive process), speaking and writing (productive

process), and thinking process (Johnson, 2008). Those processes are the main

processes which happened in reading. They occur when readers read the text,

clarify the text, and declare the information of the text.

Furthermore, Grabe (2009) has another thought that process of reading

includes a rapid process, efficient process, comprehending process, interactive

process, strategic process, flexible process, purposeful process, evaluative

process, learning process and linguistic process. Those processes occur during

reading activity.

The process of reading comprehension based on the order how the readers

decode the language can be divided into three categories; bottom-up, top-down

and interactive reading (Goodman in Brown, 2007). In the bottom-up process,

readers have to identify and decode the language feature of the text including the
 17

letter, the form of the words, and the discourse of the words. In this process,

readers have to be able to decode the text first to comprehend the text. Then, in

top-down process, readers have to use their background knowledge to understand

about the text, i.e. readers look at the title of the text and relate it to their

knowledge to guess what the text is about. Lastly, in interactive reading, readers

try to combine the bottom-up and top-down processing. Readers not only identify

and decode the language feature of the text but also use their background

knowledge and experience to comprehend the text.

1.4 Factors Affecting Reading Comprehension

There are many ideas of the factors affecting reading comprehension

proposed by some experts. Brown (2001) states that there are three factors

affecting reading comprehension namely: (a) background knowledge of the text,

(b) affection, (c) purpose of reading.

a. Background knowledge of the text

Students’ background knowledge of the text is one of the factors affecting

reading comprehension. Readers understand what they read because they are able

to take the stimulus beyond the graphic representation and assign it membership

to an appropriate group of concepts already stored in their memories. Here, the

students’ background knowledge is important since the students start to make

connections about what they already know in order to construct meaning.

 18

b. Affection

Affection factor includes the students’ interest, motivation, attitudes and

beliefs. The affective factors have an important role in influencing what is

understood by the readers.

c. Purpose of reading

Efficient reading consists of clearly identifying the purpose in reading.

Purposes of reading help the reader to focus on information that they want to find

out. A reader can have problems in understanding a text if he reads with no

particular purpose in mind.

According to Klinger and Vaughn (2007) that vocabulary mastery is also

affecting reading comprehension. It is impossible to understand the text if the

readers do not know much about a significant number of the words in the text. By

mastering much vocabulary, the reader can consruct the meaning of the text

easily.

From the theories above, it was concluded that reading comprehension is

not a single process. It was a complex process which is affected by some factors

such as the reader’s background knowledge of the text, the reader’s motivation

and interest in reading, the reader’s purpose of reading, and the reader’s

vocabulary mastery. All of those factors relate to each other in influencing the

reader’s reading comprehension ability.

 19

1.5 Teaching Reading Comprehension

Teaching reading comprehension is essential because reading is the most

important activity in any language class. Teaching is an activity in which the

teacher guides and facilitates learning, gives a chance for the learners to learn, and

sets the condition for learning (Brown, 2000). Guidance is done by leading the

students to do activities in the effort of getting knowledge. The teacher can help

the students in gaining the knowledge by giving facilities such as tasks. By giving

these tasks, the teacher lets the students study by themselves. To make the

teaching and learning process run well, the teacher needs to set a good situation

for the students to learn. In setting a good condition, the teacher must consider a

classroom method or technique that is used as this can influence the way she/ or

he manages the class.

Based on the definition above, teaching reading comprehension was a

guidance that is done by the teacher to make learners reach their reading

comprehension on the text using a certain technique. The teacher can lead the

learners to understand a text by using some strategies on reading comprehension

(Pang, et.al., 2003).

1.6 Problems of Teaching Reading Comprehension

Teaching reading is a part of the activity in teaching English that must be

done by the teacher. Some teachers find problems in teaching reading

comprehension. The first problem is that the teacher cannot know exactly the

students’ prior knowledge (National Research Council, 2003). Although the

 20

teacher has taught some materials which are related to the topic that will be

discussed, she or he cannot make sure that all the students can understand the

material well. It becomes a serious problem in teaching reading comprehension as

prior knowledge is very important to the students’ reading comprehension.

Teachers find the fact that deciding suitable tasks of reading are

complicated (National Research Council, 2003). It is reasonable enough as tasks

will influence the students in comprehending a text. When the teacher can give

good and suitable tasks of reading, the students will engage in reading and

comprehension can be easily achieved. Indeed, appropriate tasks and texts help

students in understanding texts.

Another problem that might be faced by the teacher is that teachers feel

that finding the best method and strategies to teach the students is quite difficult.

It is because they face students with different characteristics and levels of

intelligence. In fact, the method and strategies chosen by the teacher may affect

the students in achieving their reading comprehension. That is why suitable

methods and strategies are needed to conduct by teachers in teaching reading

comprehension.

From the description above, it was clear that the condition of not knowing

exactly the students’ prior knowledge, the difficulty in designing suitable tasks,

and the difficulty in choosing the appropriate technique and strategies are

problems which appear in teaching reading comprehension. In relation to the last

problem, the difficulty in choosing appropriate methods and strategies, the

researcher feelt necessary to apply certain strategy in reading comprehension.

 21

2. Narrative Text

Narrative is the most famous type of any text. Various purposes are

communicated in a narrative type. As Meyers (2005) explains that narrative is one

of the most powerful ways of communicating with others. A good written story

lets your reader response to some event in your life as if it is own. They are not

only understand the event, but they can almost feel it. The action, details, and

dialogue put the readers in these seem and make it happen for them. Sudarwati

and Grace (2007) concludes that narrative text has social function to amused,

certain and to deal with actual or vicarious experience in different ways. It means

narrative text can comfort someone, when they read the narrative text.

From all above, narrative text is telling a story, experience, and can amuse

the reader when someone reads a narrative text. So, narrative text can amuse and

entertain people or the reader.

Generally, narrative text has a generic structure. According to Djatmika

and Wulandari (2013) there are three generic structures lexicogramatical of

narrative text. They are orientation, complication and resolution.

a. Orientation

This is part of the opening story. As opening story, it is very important to

make an interesting story to make the reader interest to read. It should also explain

the background of the story, such as sets the mood by defining the setting, time,

the main character, the relationship between the characters and other information

to give the reader a starting point.

 22

b. Complication

This is the main body of the story. This part includes an event that leads

the characters into a complication when the normal events are upset by some

forms of conflict. There may be more than one complication and this serves to

frustrate the characters in their attempts to achieve what they wish. This builds

also tension and anticipation for the reader.

c. Resolution

The last is resolution. The crisis resolved, for better or even worse. This

part contains the ending of the character s problem and conflict. There are three

possible resolutions. First, the story will be ended with the happy ending. Second,

the story will be ended by sad ending. The last, the writer allows the reader to

guess the end of the story.

Narrative text also has a specific of language features. Grace and

Sudarwati (2007) said the significant features of narrative text are focused on

specific and usually individualized participants, use of material processes, use

relational and mental processes, the use of temporal conjunction and temporal

circumstances and use of past tense. Narrative text uses past tense because it told

about some events in the past.

3. Read, Cover, Remember, Retell (RCRR) Strategy

Read, Cover, Remember, Retell strategy is aimed for increasing the

knowledge and understanding of the participant in a collaborative context.

According to Hoyt (2002) that this strategy has assisted many children in reading
 23

more carefully and taking responsibility for conciously focusing on remembering

information in text. The goal is to increase the students ability to think and talk

about what is being read that is essential to comprehension, having conversations

with predictable steps allows students ability to process text. Read, cover,

remember and retell strategy is one of the strategy to learn in a cooperative

learning environment. The students will study in pairs or in a small group. It

motivates the students to express their comprehension of the text. It means the

students can get their comprehension, then they will re-state by their own words to

catch the main idea of the text.

In addition, Brummer and Macceca (2008) state that read, cover,

remember, retell strategy is an effective strategy to help readers at all levels who

think that good reading is reading quickly. There are some effective thing from

read, cover, remember, retell stategy that involve alternating and summarizing or

explaining. In this case read,cover,remember and retell stratetgy can reduce the

opportunity of one participant is simply a passive recepient seem likely to be

better for both motivation and learning. The success of students assigned to

learner-teacher will then be a measure for evaluating the success of learner-

teacher. It will make the students responsible for both teaching to and learning

each other.

Read, cover, remember, retell strategy has some advantages of interaction

with a peer, making the students has an opportunity for giving mutual support and

stimulation. According to Anita (2013) in her research, states that this strategy

gives stimulus to the students to become active learning. The students are also
 24

motivated to share the information or express their story each others. It means the

effective learning and teaching will be easy to created in the class. Besides that,

this strategy is also appropriate to apply when the teacher teaches narrative text.

When the comprehension problems are determining importance of information,

sequence, details, elements of plot, locating information, this strategy may

become one of the recommended strategy can be used.

In teaching reading the general procedures of read, cover, remember, retell

strategy Brummer and Macceca (2008) explain (1) Read only as much as your

hand can cover. (2) Cover the words with your hand. (3) Remember what you

have just read. (4) Retell what you have just read in your own words. So, in this

strategy the teacher can teach students to restate their own words that the most

important point based on the text or paragraph they have read and make they

understand. And the students can improve their understanding and remember of

what they have learned.

4. The Implementation of Read, Cover, Remember, Retell Strategy

(RCRR) in Teaching Reading Narrative Text

In implementing read, cover, remember, retell in teaching narrative text

to the students the researcher was applied the steps bellow :

a. The students were devided into pairs.

b. After finding a partner, the students was given a short segment of text by

the teacher
 25

c. Reading aloud the segment, then the students cover it up by their hand in

a paper and pause to think aloud what they have learned.

d. Asking the students to focus on remembering what they have read.

e. The students told to their partner what they have remembered and

understood by using their own words alternately.

f. To know the students understanding, at the end of the lesson, they was

given some questions related to the text.

g. The students answered the question without cheating each other.

h. Collecting the students answer and reviewing to their summary paper

sheet to avoid plagiarism.

i. Concluding the material generally and clarifying on students

understanding.
 26

B. Previous Relevant Study

Previous study was the result of research from the researcher before. This

study covers about the research finding that related to this strategy. Here, to get

and provide the originality of the research, the researcher wanted to present the

previous research that related to this strategy.

The first, previous research was done by Nova Yulimariza (2013) in the

Teaching Reading Comprehension by Combining Read, Cover, Remember, Retell

and Three Two One Strategies at Senior High Schoool from English Department,

Faculty of Teachers Training and Education, PGRI West Sumatra. The researcher

combines two strategies in her research. This strategy discusses to motivate

students in learning English. The use of combining of read, cover, remember,

retell strategy and three two one strategy in teaching english are devided into

three steps. (1) In pre-teaching, this activity aims to evoke the background of

students' knowledge as well as their preparation of entry into new material.(2)

Whilst-teaching, in this stage students are directed to be directly involved in the

discussion of the material. (3) Post-teaching, students and teachers conclude the

information obtained in whilst-teaching activities. Based on the results of the

discussion and its application. Combining read, cover, remember, retell strategy

and 3-2-1 strategy can be an alternative for teachers to improve students'

motivation in learning English, especially reading. It can make them think more

actively and critically in understanding the text.

Another study was from Anita (2013) in The Effect of Using Read, Cover,

Remember, Retell Strategy Toward Reading Comprehension of Second Year

 27

Students at Senior High School Sukaramai Tapung Hulu Kampar Regency from

Department of English Education, Faculty of Education and Teacher Training,

State Islamic University of Sulyan Syarif Kasim Riau, Pekanbaru. The researcher

investigated that there is a significant effect on students’ reading comprehension

achievement after being taught through Read, Cover, Remember, Retell strategy

(RCRR). The result showed that means score between by using RCRR stategy and

conventional reading activities are significantly different. It means that read,

cover, remember, retell strategy has a positive effect and effective to increase

students’ reading comprehension achievement.

Both the researchers above, the researchers have the difference with what

this researcher wants to do. The first researcher that written by Nova Yulimariza

(2013). In her research, the researcher used two strategies in teaching reading and

the research used experimental design. The differences between her research with

this research were grade and the location, beside that this research used classroom

action research (CAR) design. The second researcher was from Anita (2013). The

purpose of her research was to know is there any significance difference between

students taught by read, cover, remember, retell strategy and the conventional

strategy. While the purpose of this research is to increase the students motivation

in reading comprehension. The similarity between this research and both of the

researchers before, they have same statement of research problem that analyzing

strategy of reading and to see the effectiveness of implementing this strategy. In

this research, the researcher discuss the strategy of reading and how to implement
 28

the strategy that it was believe can help the students in understanding and

comprehending the content of the text.

C. Conceptual Framework

Reading comprehension is the mental process by which readers take the

words encoded by a writer and use them to construct an interpretation of what

they think the writer intended to convey reading comprehension involves

student’s prior knowledge, experience and vocabulary. Reading comprehension is

very important for the students to have in understanding the written language

well. But reading comprehension on students was still low, most of the student

still find many difficulties in reading comprehension even though they have done

it for many years. They do not know how to comprehend a text and get some

information from the text, also the students have low vocabulary. Consequently,

the students become slow down and become passive. Not infrequently, they feel

bored if they must comprehend the text. For them, reading comprehension was a

task of title concern. So it was a problem for teacher in teaching in the classroom.

Based on the problems above, the researcher conducted a research related

to the improving of students’ ability in reading. Here, the researcher was used

RCRR (Read, Cover, Remember, Retell) strategy to make students understand the

main idea of the text easily and remember what they have read. By using this

strategy was also enable the students to working together with other students. It

enables the students to practice their pronounciation by reading and helps them
 29

comprehend the main idea of the text, also to make the students more active in the

class.

This strategy was expected to minimize the difficulties faced when the

students are provided with the kinds of reading comprehension. Read, cover,

remember, retell strategy can be an alternative strategy to use. In this strategy, the

students help themselves to read well and more rapidly by selecting what was the

important thing or the main idea of the text for them to remember.
 30

CHAPTER III

METHOD OF RESEARCH

A. Research Design

This research was conducted by using Classroom Action Research (CAR)

design. The design of the research was described in detail as the following chart.

Chart 3.1 Classroom Action Research Model by Kemmis and Mc. Taggart in

Arikunto (2013)

30
 31

This research was applied in two cycles. There are four steps in conducting

this classroom action research, namely: (a) planning, (b) action, (c) observation,

(d) reflection.

1. Planning, the researcher and the teacher made the plans regarding to the

implementation of the research related to this strategy.

2. Action, the teacher applied the strategy to the students in the classroom and the

researcher observe.

3. Observation, the researcher was observed the process of implementing learning

in the classroom to get the data.

4. Reflection, the researcher along with the teachers collaborator reflect on the

implementation of the learning process.

B. Subject of the Research

The subjects of this research were the teacher and the students of X-IIK1

MAN 1 Medan located on Jalan.Williem Iskandar No. 7 B Medan of 2017/2018

academic year. It was amounted to 34 students, consisted of 18 males and 15

females. This subjects was chosen as a place of study because it was experienced

by the researcher based on the consideration that the class was the weakest in

reading comprehension.

The position of the researcher was as an observer while the

implementation of learning process done by the teacher. She was collaborated

with the English teacher in applying the strategy.

 32

C. Instrument of the Research

The instruments that used by the researcher in collecting the research data

were: (1) test and (2) observation sheet.

1. Test

The test was given to the students in order to get the quantitative data. It

was in the form of multiple choice tests. The test consists of ten questions. Those

items were about finding general information, specific information, implied

meaning and textual reference meaning from the text. The subjects answered the

items by crossing the choices among (A, B, C, D or E). For the correct answer

got ten points and incorrect answer got 0 point. This test was used to get the

quantitative data and to measure the students' achievement in reading

comprehension.

2. Observation Sheet

Observations was used to collect the qualitative data. It was about teachers'

performance and students activities in learning process by using the read, cover,

remember, retell learning strategy. The observation sheet was arranged and filled

by the researcher by ticking the checklist during the learning.

 33

D. Procedure of the Research

The procedures of the research were described as the followings:

1. Cycle I

a) Planning

The activities in the planning were:

1) Making the lesson plan about Narrative Text.

2) Designing the steps in read, cover, remember, retell strategy.

3) Preparing the material, that is Narrative Text.

4) Preparing teaching aids, that is read, cover, remember, retell strategy.

5) Preparing a test, that is reading test.

b) Action

Teacher’s activities:

1) The teacher opened the class by greetings the students.

2) The teacher asked the students what topic they will learn, that is Narrative Text.

3) The teacher told to the students about the advantages of Narrative Text.

4) The teacher introduced read, cover, remember, retell strategy in learning

Narrative Text.

5) The teacher asked the student’s opinion about Narrative Text.

6) The teacher gave the definition of Narrative Text.

7) The teacher showed the text of Narrative with the generic structure.

8) The teacher explained about the Narrative Text.

9) The teacher gave a narrative text and reading aloud with the students.

10) The teacher devided the students into pairs or small groups.
 34

10) The teacher asked the students’ to read again by themselves to cover by their

hand as much as they can. After that the students had to tell to their partner

about what they have remembered about the text.

11) The teacher gave some questions based on the text.

12) The teacher and students made the conclusion based on the material.

12) The teacher ended the class by closing.

c) Observation

Observation was used to collect data namely, teacher and students

activities during teaching and learning process. In this case the researcher was

observed them by using observation sheet namely: students observation sheet and

the teacher’s performance in learning activities. The researcher was an observer

for English teacher and the students.

d) Reflection

Reflection is a feedback process from the action that is done. Reflection

was used to help teacher to make decision. The teacher and researcher analyzed

all recording information in learning process.

2. Cycle II

The researcher did cycle II if the result in cyle I was still need

improvement. In cycle II also had four stages; planning, action, observation, and

reflection. Every weakness in cycle I was revised in cycle II.

 35

E. Technique of Analyzing Data

There were two kinds of research data namely: quantitative and

qualitative data. Quantitative data involved students’ learning achievement was

analyzed by using a formula as follows:

∑
= ( Arikunto, 2013)

The formula is described as following :

̅ : The mean of the average score from the subjects reading comprehension

∑ : The total score of students

N : The number of the students

Next, to categorize the number of the students who passed the test

successfully, the researcher applied the following formula:

P = x 100% (Arikunto, 2013)

Where :

P : The percentage of those who getting score

R : The number of students getting score

T : The total number of the students

 36

After getting the percentage of the above analysis results, then the results

was used as determination of the success rate of students in the class according to

Arikunto (2007) as the following table.

Table 3.2 Criteria of Success Level of Students’ Learning in Percent

Level of Success (%) Categories

81 - 100% Very High
61 – 80 % High
41 - 60% Moderate
21 – 40% Low
0 - 20% Very Low

The qualitative data consisted of the information about the teacher’s

performance and the students activities in learning process was analyzed based on

the students activities and the teacher’s performance category as proposed by

Arikunto (2007).

a. Students activities in learning process

The value of students’ motivation in learning is obtained by the formula:

= 100%

Where:

P : The percentage

R : The number of activity indicators performed by the students

SM : The total number of activity indicators

 37

After getting the percentage of each individual activity, then the results

was used as determination of the criteria level of students activities in learning

process proposed by Arikunto (2007) as the following table.

Table 3.3 The Criteria of Students Activities in Learning

Value Range Categories

81 - 100% Very Active
61 – 80 % Active
41 - 60% Quite Active
21 – 40% Less
0 - 20% Passive

b. Teacher’s Performance
The teacher’s performance was analyzed based on the following category
as proposed by Arikunto (2007). It was presented in the following table.

Table 3.4 The Category of Teacher’s Performance

Value Range Categories

81 – 100 Very Good
61 – 80 Good
41 – 60 Enough
21 – 40 Less
0 – 20 Bad

F. Success Indicator

This classroom action research was judged to succeed if ≥75% of the total

students reached the minimum score at 80 (good), then the students activities in

learning activities was categorized good if the average percentage shows that it

has reached 75% of the number of students.

 38

CHAPTER IV

DATA AND DATA ANALYSIS

A. Data

This study consists of qualitative and quantitative data. The qualitative

data were taken by observation sheet about students’ activities and teacher’s

performance. The quantitative data were taken from the students’ score of reading

test in pre-test, cycle I and cycle II. In detail, the qualitative data were presented

in the Appendix 8 and 10, meanwhile the quantitative ones were in the Appendix

7.

B. Data Analysis

After giving pre-test to the students, the researcher got the data from 34

students still have not got the score with successful category. These data indicated

that the students were still low in learning mastery in reading comprehension. In

other words, the percentage of the students’ achievement was 0%. So the

percentage of the level students’ achievement had not been achieved. Based on the

results of this pretest, then the researcher conducted Cycle I to improve students

learning outcomes in reading test.

4.1 Cycle I

In the Cycle I, there were many activities done. All activities were

elaborated by researcher as follows:

38
 39

a. Planning

Before implementing the action, the first by planning. Planning are

designed based on the results of the test and the initial observation, namely (a)

designing lesson plan about narrative text as the material, (b) make the

observation sheet to see the students’ learning mastery, and the activity of

students and teacher’s performance, (c) preparing the research instruments to see

an increased in students’ achievement in the learning process.

b. Acting

Implementation of the first cycle done in 2 sessions (2x45

minutes/meeting). Learning activity in this cycle were implemented in accordance

with a plan designed at the planning stage action. In the early stages, the

researcher should be first explain the steps that will be applied to the learning

strategy and learning objectives to be achieved. Then the students were divided

into six discussion groups in accordanced with the characteristics of

read,cover,remember and retell strategy implemented. Each discussion group

consisted of six students with different abilities. After a discussion group formed

researchers explained briefly about the learning materials and how the

implementation of RCRR strategy in learning narrative text.

In applying this strategy, the researcher collaborated with the English

teacher. The teacher integrated the narrative text with the students’ environment

and other subject. The teacher told about some examples of narrative texts. Then

the teacher analyzed the generic structure, characters, plot and setting, and the

events that happened in the text. In groups, the teacher asked the students to find
 40

the generic structure and analyzed what was the main idea of the text.

In the implementation of the discussion, the students independently was

given a narrative text. Then after receiving the text, the students started to analyze

the information in details with members of the group and share the result of their

discussion to other groups. Finally, the students were given multiple choice test to

be answered.

c. Observing and Evaluating

1. Observation activity of students in learning process. Students’ activity was

observed after the first cycle based on the criteria of excellent, good, fair, and

less was presented in the following table:

Table 4.1
The Percentage of Students’ Activity In Cycle I

No Aspects of Observation Score

1 Interest 46,33%
2 Attention 56,62%
3 Participation 67,65%
4 Presentation 63,24%
Means 58,46%

The data above show that the students’ activity in learning process in

groups with read, cover, remember and retell strategy is still relatively low at

46,33% of interest, attention 56,62%, participation 67,65% and presentation of

63,24%. One of the data shows that the level of students’ activity in cycle I was

the highest on the participatory aspect at 67,65%, and the lowest was the

interest aspect at 46,33%. Of the total, the means level of students’ activity in

teaching and learning conditions in the first cycle was 58,46%.

 41

2. The results of observations on teacher’s performance in teaching and learning

process by using read, cover, remember and retell strategy were presented in

the table below:

Table 4.2
The Percentage of Teacher’s Performace in Cycle I

No Activity Score
1. Aperception 51,47%
2. Material Explanation 57,35%
3. Explanation of RCRR strategy 44,11%
4. Technique of dividing groups 52,94%
5. Classroom management 53,67%
6. The use of media 50,73%
7. The Voice 53,67%
8. Management of discussion 48,52%
9. Guidance to groups 51,47%
10. Giving question or quiz 56,61%
11. Ability to evaluate 47,79%
12. Rewarding individuals or groups 55,14%
13. Determining scores 52,20%
14. Concluding learning materials 50,00%
15. Closing the learning 57,35%
Means 52,20%

Based on data in the table above, the teacher’s performance in teaching

process was quite good. This evident come from the average of the observation

on teacher’s performance, amounting to 52,20% with the ideal score of 100%.

Then, the teacher’s performance in the first cycle was the highest on the

material explanation at 57,35% and the lowest score on the explanation of the

learning strategy at 44,11%.

3. The result of the evaluation of the students’ learning mastery in cycle I.

In addition, the activities of students and the teacher in the learning

process on the level of students’ learning mastery is already well but still had
 42

not reached the ideal value of success at 100, the means score achieved only

reached 75,29, with details of values as follows: score of 90 was earned by a

person, 70 was 15 people and 80 was 17 people.

d. Reflecting

Based on the data obtained from the observations and evaluations are

findings as a reflection. The successes and failures in cycle I as follows:

1. Students did not understand the activity of groups learning with

read,cover,remember and retell strategy. Students tend to still be

individualized, so the majority of students’ are less motivated. It was indicated

from the means results of the observation of students’ activity in the learning

process with the percentage rate of 58,46%.

2. Some of the students has not yet implemented their understanding in

comprehending narrative text as learning material to the fullest.

3. The teacher still award or not familiar to created an atmosphere of active

learning using read,cover,remember,retell strategy in learning process. The

level of teachers’ performance in learning and still not up to the percentage of

52,20%.

4. In learning narrative text by using read,cover,remember,retell strategy as a

learning media has not done well.

5. The level of students’ learning mastery that are not yet maximal. In other

words, the level of students’ achievement still had not succeded, with the

percentage of 52,94%.
 43

4.2 Cycle II

The Cycle II done because after reflecting from the cycle I still not enough

good. Cycle II was conducted to improve against the constraints encountered in

cycle I.

a. Planning

In the second cycle, the action plan are a follow up of problems or

obstacles encountered in the implementation of the first cycle action. The main

issues contained in the first cycle with regard to the learning experience of

students by using read,cover,remember,retell strategy. Learning on the second

action aims to improved students learning activities in order to achieved the

specified indicators. Implementations of the second cycle were substantially

similar to the execution of the first cycle.

b. Acting

Implementation of the action in the second cycle was in principle the same

as the first cycle of implementation of the action. In this cycle, the study was

conducted in two meetings. At the beginning of the learning process in this cycle,

a technical description of read, cover, remember, retell strategy of media-assisted

learning in teaching narrative text still be given to students in order to improve

students’ ability to take the advantage of the strategy. Then, the next learning

process is similar to previous meeting, but with the same learning materials.
 44

c. Observing and Evaluating

1. The observation of students’ activity in learning process. The development of

the level of students’ activities in the learning process in the second cycle were

presented in the following table:

Table 4.3
Activity Score of Students’ in Learning Process of Cycle II

No Aspects of Observation Score

1 Interest 75,00%
2 Attention 80,88%
3 Participation 77,94%
4 Presentation 84,55%
Means 80%

Based on the table above, it explains that in the process of teaching and

learning of students’ activities had shown a good development with the average

percentage of 80%. With the four aspects of these observations, the

presentation aspect of the highest score that was 84,55%, while the lowest for

the aspects of interest with the value of 75%. The table above also showed that

the students’ activity in learning process in the second cycle increased

significantly. This means were increased in the students’ activities in learning

between the first and the second cycle, either individually or in groups ability.

This evident come from the means score of students’ activities between the

first cycle 58,46% and the second cycle 80%. It was concluded that the

students’ activities in learning process increased.

2. The results of observations on teacher’s performance in teaching and learning

process by using read, cover, remember and retell strategy were ilustrated

below:
 45

Table 4.4
The Percentage of Teachers’ Performace in Cycle II

No Activity Score
1. Aperception 68,38%
2. Material Explanation 83,08%
3. Explanation of RCRR strategy 74,26%
4. Technique of dividing groups 75,00%
5. Classroom management 75,00%
6. The use of media 77,20%
7. The Voice 73,52%
8. Management of discussion 73,75%
9. Guidance to groups 79,41%
10. Giving question or quiz 66,91%
11. Ability to evaluate 77,94%
12. Rewarding individuals or groups 72,79%
13. Determining scores 74,26%
14. Concluding learning materials 79,41%
15. Closing the learning 75,73%
Means 75,11%

The data above shows that the teacher’s performace in the process of

learning already looks good, with the average percentage of 75,11%. Then,

from this data also show that the teacher’s performance in Cycle II was the

highest on material explanation aspect at 83,08% and the lowest in giving

question or quiz aspect at 66,91%. Thus, in the second cycle, the teacher’s

performance has increased very rapidly in the learning process as compared to

the percentage of the means score of the previous cycle, with the first cycle of

52,20%. So, from the data showed that there was a significant improvement of

teachers’ performance in the learning process from cycle I to cycle II with a

comparison rate of 22,91%.

3. The result of the evaluation of students’ learning mastery in Cycle II.

 46

Students’ mastery of learning materials in second cycle was getting better

with the mean score of 87,05. A detailed description of the activity score was

14 people earn a score of 80, 16 people with a score of 90 and 4 people with a

score of 100. Then, the level of overall percentage of successfull students’

toward mastery of the material was at 100%. Thus, based on the means score of

this percentage was concluded that students’ learning mastery in the second

cycle increased significantly.

d. Reflecting

The following are some of the achievements after the implementation of

the second cycle, namely:

1. In the process of teaching and learning, students’ activities already tend to be

better towards read,cover,remember,retell strategy in reading comprehension.

This evident comes from the ability of students already participate more

actively in groups to carry out the tasks assigned by the researcher, and were

able to take the advantages of narrative text as the medium of active learning

and effective as well. This condition can be seen from the increased activity of

students better than 58,46% in the first cycle to 80% in the second cycle.

2. Changes in the learning process in line with the increased activity in teaching

students with learning by created more attractive through the implementation

of read,cover,remember,retell strategy in reading a narrative text. It based on

the result of observation on the teacher’s performance in learning by using

read,cover,remember,retell strategy in reading comprehension of 52,20% in the

first cycle into 75,11% in the second cycle.

 47

3. Changes in students’ result on mastery learning material looks significantly

based on the data of the means value of the results in the second cycle

evaluation 75,29 in the first cycle with a 52,94% success percentage increased

in the second cycle into 87,05 with a percentage of 100% success.

C. Research Findings & Discussion

Based on the data analysis, it showed that the students’ achievement in

reading comprehension had been improved by applying RCRR (read, cover,

remember, retell) strategy. At this stage of students mastery level action were still

very low and did not reach the percentage of graduation. At the first cycle, the

model of learning by using read,cover,remember,retell strategy applied and

supported by the application of narrative text as the material in teaching reading

comprehension. At this stage students graduation rate are 52,94%. These result

indicated that the level of learning achievement are still relatively less successful.

However, an increased in the ability of students rather than the pre-test. In this

action, the students’ activities in learning process was relatively quite active with

the average percentage of 58,46%. Students did not accustomed to the learning by

using read,cover,remember,retell strategy in reading narrative text as the medium

of learning that needs to be improved on the second Cycle.

The implementation of this second cycle starting from the problem at the

cycle I. Result measures the means score of the ability of students to mastery of

the material obtained in Cycle II was 87,05, with the graduation rate of 100%. The

average percentage of students’ activities in the learning process was 80%.

 48

Meanwhile, the teacher’s performance in the study also experienced

improvements, with a percentage of 75,11%. It meant that there was a significant

increase in students’ achivement and learning activities, and otherwise managed

very well.

Thus, it was concluded that the application of read,cover,remember,retell

strategy in reading comprehension can increase the ability and students activities

in the learning process well, especially in the teaching narrative text.

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CHAPTER V

CONCLUSION AND SUGGESTION

A. Conclusion

Based on the result of clasroom action research, the conclusion were drawn as

follows:

1. There was an improvement of students’ achievement in reading comprehension

by implementing RCRR (read,cover,remember,retell) strategy in reading

comprehension. The improvement of students’ achievement was shown from

the quantitative data. The mean score in cycle I was 75,29, the mean score in

cycle II was 87,05; the students who got score more than 80 in cycle I was 18

students, the students who got score more than 80 in cycle II was 34 students;

and the percentage of the students who got score more than 80 in cycle I was

52,94%, the percentage of the students who got score more than 80 in cycle II

was 100%.

2. The results of the students’ activities observation shown there was an increase

in students’ activities in teaching and learning process from the first cycle to

the second cycle, the means value of 58,46% in cycle I to 80% in the second

cycle by the differences in numbers 21,54%.

3. The teacher’s performance also showed a significant improvement. It was

shown from the means value of the percentage 52,20% in the first cycle to

75,11% in the second cycle.

49
 50

B. Suggestion

Suggestion were staged as follows:

1. It is better for English teacher to use this strategy to improve students’

achievement in reading comprehension.

2. It is good for the students to use RCRR (read,cover,remember,retell) strategy

in learning narrative text.

3. It is suggested for other researchers to use this research findings as the

reference to investigate.
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