research proposal car

8/3/2019 Research Proposal Car

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Chapter I

INTRODUCTION

1.1 Background of Study

Reading can be placed in the first place of the most important skill in learning

English. Some researchers believed that reading could support the process of

mastering the other skills and improving the knowledge. However, the fact shows that

not every individual learns it well. Moreover, in Indonesia, English is a foreign

language. So, the way how the students in comprehend reading skill is totally

different with the native students or ESL students.

Williams (2010) wrote in her article that there are three kinds of major

problems in reading comprehension that being faced by EFL students. First is

language problem. Language plays a vital role in the reading skill. It can be taken an

analogy like in ice hockey game. Someone who cannot skate will not able to play the

ice hockey game. So, if someone has poor knowledge in English, his reading will also

be poor and naturally also his reading comprehension.

Second is foundational skill of reading havent been automized. It can be

taken a case in speaking. When someone attempted to speak with a language which

hasnt become automatic yet, necessarily he will try to divide his attention into two,

contain of the text and the language itself. Because of his divided attention, the way

how he speaks will be haltingly and with great difficulty. It also happened in reading

skill. When the foundational skills of reading hasnt become automatic yet, the person

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will read haltingly and has great difficulty. The poor or lower level reader will try to

force himself to apply his concentration to the word recognition and therefore has no

concentration left to decode the written words. Finally, as the result, he will not be

able to read with comprehension.

The last problem is word recognition problem. The ability in decoding or

recognizing the written words is very important. It is very impossible to get

maximum reading comprehension without able to decode or recognize written words.

Grabe (2004) cited in Chang (2010) stated that automatic word-decoding skills and

prior knowledge of a texts content may interact and strongly affect success in

comprehension. When learners are exposed to a large quantity of varying texts, their

topical knowledge may be enhanced. This can explain why someone can read

without understanding what they are reading.

The other problem in reading also appears in EFL students. Actually, the most

important thing in the reading process is comprehend the message in the text itself.

The other important thing that should be given attention is about time management.

Slow reading, as a result of frequent regression, will hinder comprehension. The fast

reading is believed can help the reader to get more material to be prepared and

consequently it will make the reader eager to read to get that kind of advantages. This

case happened to Indonesian students whom the background is not native speaker.

They maybe can overcome the problem in comprehension but they still failed to

arrange the effective time in reading. They can understand the messages related to the

text similar with natives but they need longer extra time to get the comprehension.

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Generally, in education institution, it is found that the reading habit of the

students is still not sufficient. Especially in intensive reading, which is stressed on the

important information based on the text, the students often face some problems. They

often need a long time to read because they only focus in the difficult word, looking

up the meaning in the dictionary, and finally they forget what they have read before.

These problems also happened in the 11th grade of the senior high school

students in SMAN 1 Pacitan. Their ability in reading comprehension is still low

whereas the level of difficulty of reading material always increases. They have

problems in the difficult words, understanding the contents, an about the management

of time. The teacher generally only asks the students open the dictionary if the

students have problems in difficult words and it makes the learning process of reading

run slowly. If their ability is still low, of course the students will face some problems

in doing the reading tests. So that, it is needed speed-reading strategy to overcome

these problems in order to the students able in comprehend the reading text itself in

sufficient time.

Based on the cases above, this research is conducted to know about the effect

of speed-reading strategy in improving reading comprehension and the students

responses toward the strategy itself. It will be used Class Action Research (CAR) in

this research.

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1.2 The Aim of Study

Based on the cases above, the aim of this study is to know about the

significant impact of speed reading strategy in solving the problems of reading

comprehension of senior high school student and the students responses toward the

strategy.

1.3 The Research Questions

There are two research questions according to the problems and the aim of the

study above. They are:

1. Does the speed-reading strategy give significant effect toward

the problems in improving reading comprehension?

2. What are the students responses toward the speed reading

strategy?

1.4 Hypothesis

According to Hatch and Farhady (1982), hypothesis is a tentative statement

about outcome of a research.

1.4.1 Null Hypothesis

There is no relationship between speed reading strategy and the students

reading skill

1.4.2 Alternative Hypothesis

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There is a relationship between speed reading strategy and the students

reading skill

1.5 Limitation of Problems

This research will is limited to particular subject, location, and area of

knowledge.

1.5.1 Limitation of Subject and Location

The limitation of the subject and location in this research is the students in

senior high school of SMAN 1 Pacitan in the 11th grade. The reason why they are

chosen is because they are still lack in the development of reading comprehension

whereas mostly the level of difficulty in the reading texts material is quite hard.

1.5.2 Limitation of Knowledge Area

The limitation of area knowledge in this research is only focusing in Reading

Comprehension.

1.6 Benefits of the Study

There are some benefits that try to be offered based on the results of this

research. There are three kinds of beneficial, for the researcher, for the teachers of

English, and the students.

1.6.1 Benefits of the Study for the Researcher

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She will know more about the use of reading speed strategy in terms of

improving the reading comprehension of senior high school students.

Furthermore, the researcher can get experience and reference about how to teach

reading comprehension through several technique or strategy for high school

students.

1.6.2 Benefits of the Study for the Teachers

From this research, the teachers especially the English teacher, they can

develop the teaching strategy in reading comprehension better. It can be such a

motivation for the teacher to prepare the proper strategy that needs to be used in

solving the problems in reading comprehension so that they can improve the

ability of the students in reading.

1.6.3 Benefits of Study for the Students

They can clearly identify what are their problems in reading comprehension.

Then, it can give a new experience in learning reading comprehension so that the

students can be motivated to develop their reading skill.

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Chapter II

THEORETICAL FOUNDATION

2.1 Definitions of Reading Comprehension

There are some definitions of reading comprehension based on some experts.

According to Zimmerman (2010), she stated that reading comprehension essentially

the ability to understand what has been read. It means that the reader does not only

know how to decode and pronounce well about the words in the reading text but also

understand well what the text about.

Then, the other definition comes from Flowers (2010). She stated that

comprehension reading is reading with complete understanding of the text. It involves

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knowledge of vocabulary, understanding of sentence structure and syntax, and ability

to interpret the intentions of the writer. It deals that reading for comprehension

requires more attentions than just reading for enjoyment. When a student is learning

new information or studying for a test, he must be aware of the writer's intent and

meaning. Without comprehension skills, a student will struggle with recall of

information and total understanding of concepts.

Moreover Richard et all (1987) cited in Ali (2009) define reading

comprehension as the understanding that results from perceiving a written text. There

are different types of reading comprehension distinguished according to the readers

purpose in reading: literal comprehension, inferential comprehension, critical

comprehension and appreciative comprehension.

So, from some definitions above, it can be concluded that reading

comprehension is the ability to understand the essential parts of text which deal with

the vocabularies, the structures and syntax, the pronunciation and decoding, etc and

also able to catch the idea, interpret and evaluate the text.

2.2 The Various Stages in Reading Comprehension

Zimmerman (2010) explained that they are several stages in reading

comprehension that can be done in improving reading skill in order to become fluent

reader. The stages are below.

a. Monitoring Comprehension

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This stage is about clarifying the understanding when reading the text.

Sometimes readers read the text but they absolutely didnt remember about

the information. Simply rereading is done in this stage to help the reader to

monitoring back the information that they have forgotten.

b. Activating Background Knowledge

This stage deals with recalling the background knowledge of the reader by

connecting the things that they have already know with what they are reading

in the text.

c. Questioning the Text

Good reading comprehension requires not only asking, "Do I understand what

I am reading?" but, "What else do I want to know? Usually the reader will

use post-it notes to write down their questions while reading. Sometimes it

may be as simple as wanting to know what a specific word mean, or as

complex as knowing about an historical event.

d. Drawing Inferences

Reading comprehension also means to combine prior knowledge and current

reading to predict what may happen next in the text or to figure out what a

word means by its use in the text. So, making inferences can help the reader in

reading comprehension by guessing from them important word symbols from

the text.

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e. Determining Importance

Finding the main idea, that popular part of comprehension questions, is only a

part of determining importance. Good comprehension requires that readers

can not only determine the main idea, but also themes, secondary ideas and

clues as to what will happen next.

f. Synthesizing Information

Readers who infer from, question and connect to the text are then able to

synthesize the information. For example, a simple form of synthesizing is

when someone no longer read the directions to make a favorite recipe, but

instead incorporate a few new ideas that he remember from the cookbook that

he borrowed last week.

2.3 Theory of Reading Fluent Process

Segalowitz (2000) cited in Chang (2010) stated that fluency, regardless of

whether in reading, speaking, listening, or a musical performance, often refers to

three components: accuracy, speed, and fluidity. Then Meyer (1999) cited in Chang

(2010) added, in the case of reading comprehension, fluency has been widely

characterized as the ability to read text rapidly, smoothly, effortlessly, and

automatically with little attention to the mechanics of reading such as decoding.

Like in the previous that there are two kinds of reader, high level reader and

lower level reader. Lower level reader must be processed rapidly and automatically

and the automation of this lower level reader is requirement for fluent reading. Lower

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level reader and high level reader need comprehension processes, which involve

understanding text meaning, interpreting the ideas represented by the text, using

reading strategies if necessary, making inferences, drawing on background

knowledge, and evaluating the information being read. For fluent readers or high

level readers, all of these processes have become working in parallel, in terms of

quickly and efficiently, in other words, automatically.

Reading fluency is seen as primarily achieved through automatization of word

recognition, which allows one to have more attention resources to focus on the

meaning of the text rather than on decoding words. Reading fluency is usually

measured by reading rate, calculated by words per minute (wpm). Research in L1

reading shows that in silent reading a normal reader reads at approximately 250 to

300 wpm (Carver, 1990 cited in Lin, 2009).

Although automaticity in word processing alone is not sufficient to determine

reading comprehension, which can be profoundly affected by many other factors for

examples reading purposes, tasks, text difficulty (involving grammatical structure and

vocabulary), as well as topic familiarity, or even readers physical condition (e.g.,

being tired or unable to concentrate), it is a good indicator of reading fluency because

fluent readers usually have fast word recognition abilities. (Fraser, 2007 cited in

Chang, 2010)

2.4 The Various Strategies in Reading Comprehension

It is important for the students whether they are ESL/EFL students to get the

training to become a strategic reader. Paris et al. (1983) cited in Fan (2010)

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highlighted that learning to be a strategic reader can promote reading comprehension

and failure to be strategic in reading may result from either developmental inability

or poor learning.

Palincsar & Brown (1984) cited in Fan (2010) suggest that strategic reading

helps students, especially low-achieving learners, avoid comprehension failure and

enhance their retention of the text. Similarly, Koda (2004) cited in Chang (2010)

points out that strategic reading can not only compensate for learners comprehension

deficiency but also develop their critical thinking. So, from these states of the experts,

in reading comprehension, it is important to implement the right strategies.

Klingner (1998) cited in Fan (2010) proposed Collaborative Strategic Reading

(CSR). It is one type of comprehension strategy instruction designed to improve

learners strategic reading abilities through small group discussion. In CSR, four

reading strategies are taught including preview, click and clunk, get the gist

and wrap-up. Empirical studies have supported the positive impact of CSR on

primary and secondary ESL and EFL learners reading comprehension, learning

motivation and English acquisition.

The other strategy is called Reciprocal teaching (RT) stated by Brown (1984).

Reciprocal teaching is designed for students who have basic decoding skills but have

difficulties in meaning construction. This instructional model involves teachers and

students collaborative work to construct text meaning. In practice, teachers model

four cognitive reading strategies by using the thinking aloud technique to help

students improve their reading comprehension: summarizing, generating questions,

clarifying, and making predictions. In classroom settings using reciprocal teaching,

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students gradually assume the role of being the teacher when they become more

proficient. This aims to make them more independent in their learning.

Furthermore, Pressley (1992) proposed transactional strategies instruction

(TSI). This strategic reading intervention shares the same features of teacher

modeling, directs explanation of reading strategies and guided practice with direct

explanation of comprehension strategies, but differs in (1) its emphasis on the

interpretative transaction between readers and text and (2) transactions among group

members to construct meaning together. Moreover, a major difference between TSI

and other comprehension strategy approaches is that TSI not only emphasizes

cognitive reading strategies but also interpretative strategies. In TSI, a small

repertoire of comprehension strategies are instructed and practiced over a long period

of time including predicting, generating images, seeking clarification and

summarizing. The long-term goal of TSI is to help students internalize strategic

processing through the interaction of group discussion and teacher scaffolding.

It can be concluded that some researchers have conduct some researches to

solve the problems in reading comprehension. Until this period, some researchers still

make improvement in finding the best techniques or strategies. So, the writer tries to

make a research which deal with reading speed strategy to know the effect of it and

tries to compare with the other strategies before.

2.5 The Speed Reading Strategy

Like what have been discussed in the previous study about the theoretical

framework of the idea that speed reading strategy improves reading fluency. It based

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on research on working memory (such as short-term memory, etc), referring to the

information that is activated or given mental stimulation for immediate storage and

processing, and is characterized by having limited capacity and the fact that its

content fades very quickly.

If a reader reads too slowly (below 200 wpm), they may be reading word by

word and forget what is being read, and the result is poor comprehension. To

minimize the functional limitations of short-term memory in the reading process, a

variety of strategies have been suggested, one of them being speed reading. Speed

reading involves having students read under time pressure, the purpose of which is to

improve reading speed to an optimal rate that supports comprehension rather than

developing speedy readers.

Some studies have shown that increasing the reading rate will improve

reading comprehension. What then is an optimal reading rate? Carver (1990) cited in

Lin (2009), made a distinction between five types of reading: scanning, skimming,

rauding (just to understand the message), learning (to acquire the information), and

memorizing (to be able to recall the facts) and stated that each type is associated with

different reading rates. According to Carver, the average reading rate for a college

student who is raiding is 300 wpm, 200 wpm for learning, and 138 wpm for

memorizing. However, reading at a rate between 250 wpm and 350 wpm allows

readers to comprehend a text most efficiently.

2.6 The Advantages of Reading Speed Strategy

Jones (2011) wrote in his article that there are several advantages of speed

reading strategy. They are explained below.

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a. By enhancing their reading speed, students can cover more chapters compared

to their contemporaries, and can find more time to study other subjects. It is

proved that children who are blessed with the skill often out perform in their

studies. Since its techniques also enhance retention capability, one will be able

to recall the vital matters without re-reading the text.

b. Speed reading skill will also help employees in the corporate world to read

and comprehend reports, emails, newspapers, correspondences and technical

papers faster. Since they are required to be up-to-date with new information

without sacrificing the office duties, speed reading techniques will prove to be

helpful. These techniques that help to manage reading and comprehension at

an accelerated rate will lead to increased productivity and efficiency.

c. Its techniques also train the eye of the reader to move more quickly across the

page. Reading speed improvement comes as the reader learns to take in

information in chunks, allowing the brain to more quickly process the data

being presented.

In summary, there are some advantages of reading speed technique that are

very useful in for the students improving the reading comprehension. Because of that,

it is better to try applying it in learning reading comprehension process to know about

the real effects and responses from the students.

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Chapter III

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

This chapter will discuss about the details of the research methodology. It

deals with research problems, research method, and cycle of research.

3.1 Research Problems

This research will be focus about whether it is effective or not applying

reading speed strategy to the 11th grade senior high school student in solving the

reading comprehension problems and the students responses toward this strategy.

Those lead to the research questions below.

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1. Does the speed-reading strategy give significant effect toward

the problems in improving reading comprehension?

2. What are the students responses toward the speed reading

strategy?

3.2 Research Method

This research will deal with improving reading comprehension through speed

reading strategy for 11th grade of senior high school students. Quantitative approach

will be used as the research design. Then, this research is conducted in one of the

classes in 11th grade in SMAN 1 Pacitan. The method that will be applied is Class

Action Research (CAR) which consists of four stages namely (1) planning, (2)

implementing, (3) observing, and (4) reflecting. The cycle of the research will be

conducted once. However, if there is no significant effect in the first cycle, it will be

conducted the second cycle of the research with some change (improvement) needed.

The subject of the research is 36 students in one of the class in 11 th grade of

SMAN 1 Pacitan. The data gotten in this research are the students reading

achievement and their opinions on the speed reading strategy. The instruments which

are used in this research are reading tests and questionnaires. The criteria of the

success in this research are: (1) the students can read at least 100 words per minute;

(2) the scores of the students in reading test increase.

3.3 Cycle of Research

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3.3.1 Planning

In this stage, it will be prepared every single thing that is needed to conduct

the action research. First, it is about the socialization of speed reading strategy for

11th grade students. In this stage also will be analyzed what is the students problem

in reading. From the discussion between the teacher, the researcher, and the

students found that the main problem related to understanding the words. Generally,

the students will be asked to open the dictionary to find the meaning by the teacher.

So, in this stage also find that the teacher also has problem on how to teach reading

comprehension. He only asks the students open the dictionary whereas this strategy

can make the learning process of reading will run slowly. They may read word by

word and slowly so that it needs a long time and they forget what they read before

because they focus in the difficult words. After knowing the problem, they will be

given explanation that the most important in reading is about understand the

contents as fast as possible, not understand the difficult words. To reach the

understanding contents as fast as possible, the students need the strategy, namely

Speed-Reading Strategy. This strategy will be focused in context clues, skimming,

scanning, timed word selection exercises, and timed reading exercises. Through the

practice of those points, it is hoped that the students can be motivated to read and

do reading activity as effective as possible.

The second steps, the instruments of the research will be prepared. They are

reading tests and questionnaires. The reading tests are used to know the effect of

reading-speed strategy toward the students problem in reading comprehension,

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whether it is there will be improvement or not after the strategy is implemented.

The questionnaires are used to know the students responses toward the strategy

itself.

3.3.2 Implementing

In this stage, based on the teaching learning preparation arranged before, there

will be three phases namely pre-reading, whilst-reading, and post-reading in three

meetings. Before implementing the phases, the reading materials and the reading

tests have been prepared. They are taken from several sources, such as English text

books of 11th grade and internet.

The first meeting namely pre-reading, the students are asked to do the pre-

reading tests. They are allowed to open the dictionary during they do the tests. The

brief explanation without any simulation of the speed-reading strategy will be given

to the students. It is assumed that they do not have background knowledge about

speed-reading strategy.

` The second meeting, namely whilst-reading, the students will be given some

treatment on how the implementation of speed-reading strategy. The students will

be given the complete explanation about speed-reading strategy. After that, the

students will be shown the simulation of the activity in speed-reading strategy such

as skimming, scanning, context clues, timed word selections, and timed reading

exercises. Then, the last, after get the simulation, the students asked to do the

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second reading tests. They will be given supervisions about the steps in doing the

activities in speed-reading strategy while they are doing the reading tests.

The third meeting, namely post-reading, the students will be given post-

reading tests. The students have been given the complete explanation and the

simulation activities of speed-reading strategy. Thus, they are asked to do the post-

tests by using the strategy that they have learned before. In the end, after the

students have done in doing the post-tests, they will be given questionnaires to

know the students responses toward speed-reading strategy.

3.3.3 Observing

This stage will deal with on how the data will be collected. The gotten data

will be collected to answer the research questions in two techniques, which are

using tests and questionnaires. Firstly, to know the effect of speed-reading strategy

toward the students problem in reading comprehension, it will be used reading

tests which are taken from several sources, such as English text book for the 11 th

grade students and internet. There are two kinds of test, namely pre-test and post-

test. The pre-test is conducted before they are given the treatment and the post-test

is given after they are given the treatment. The scores of the pre-tests and the post-

tests will be compared and analyzed to know whether it is there is improvement or

not after the students use speed-reading in reading comprehension tests.

Secondly, to know the students responses toward the speed-reading strategy,

it will be used questionnaires. The type of question that will be used is the

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dichotomous questions. There will be two kinds of answer choices, which are Yes

and No answer. In each questionnaire sheet, there are three kinds of categories.

Each category consists of five questions, so the total question is fifteen questions.

The first category is about learning reading comprehension conventionally. The

second category is about the learning reading comprehension through speed-reading

strategy. The last category is about the progress in reading comprehension after

implementing speed-reading strategy.

3.3.4 Reflecting

This stage deals with the way how the data that have been collected are

analyzed. For the first research question will be answered using the result of reading

tests. The scores of pre-test and post-test will be presented in chapter four. From the

scores, it will be analyzed statistically, namely statistic descriptive. The data will be

presented trough tables of scores pre-test and post-test and bar graphs of pre-test

and post-test. Beside of that, it will be also counted the mean and the standard

deviation of the pre-test and post-test scores. If there is positive improvement from

the pre-test scores to the post-test scores, it means that speed-reading strategy can

help the students in solving their problems in reading comprehension.

For the second research question, it will be answered by using questionnaires.

The results of the questionnaires also will be analyzed statistically. After that, it will

be presented in percentage. The major responses of each category will be used to

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know how actually the students responses toward speed-reading strategy in reading

comprehension.

If the cycle of the research are failed to prove that speed-reading strategy can

improve the students reading comprehension, like the criterions of the success that

have been explained before, the cycle will be repeated once more with some

changes and improvements needed.

REFERENCES

Ali, Mohammed Farouk.Journal:The Effect of Using the Jigsaw Reading Technique

on the EFL PreserviceTeachers Reading Anxiety and Comprehension.

Available at www.tcr.edu.sa/db/researches/54.pdf. Accessed on 15th June2011.

Chang, Anna. 2010. Journal: The Effect of a Timed Reading Activity on EFL

Learners: Speed, Comprehension, and Perceptions. Available at www.

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nflrc.hawaii.edu/rfl/October2010/articles/chang.pdf. Accessed on 11th June2011.

Fan, Yen-Chi. 2010.Journal: The Effect of Comprehension Strategy Instruction on

EFL Learners Reading Comprehension. Available atwww.ccsenet.org/journal/index.php/ass/article/download/6841/5357.pdf.

Accessed on 8th June 2011.

Flowers, Debby. 2010. What is Comprehension Reading? Available at

http://www.ehow.com/about_6625410_comprehension-reading_.html.

Accessed on 10th June 2011.

Hatch, Evelyn and Farhady, Hossein. 1982. Research Design and Statistics.

NewBurry House Publisher, Inc. Massachusetts.

Jones, Craig. 2011. Speed Reading Techniques for Effective Reading. Available at

http://ezinearticles.com/?Speed-Reading-Techniques-For-Effective-Reading&id=6158029. Accessed on 10th June 2011.

Lin, Lu-Fang. 2009. Journal: The Impact of the Retelling Technique on Chinese

Students' English Reading Comprehension. Available at www.asian-efl-journal.com/June_2010. Accessed on 6th June 2011.

Williams, Christina. 2010. Comprehension Important Reading. Available athttp://www.ehow.com/facts_5146900_comprehension-important-

reading.html. Accessed on 6th June 2011.

Zimmerman, Jennifer. 2010. Definition of Reading Comprehension. Available at

http://www.ehow.com/about_6593485_definition-reading-comprehension.html. Accessed on 10th June 2011.

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